Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE ROARING GIRL, by THOMAS MIDDLETON

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE ROARING GIRL, by THOMAS MIDDLETON Poet's Biography
First Line: A play expected long makes the audience look
Last Line: And craves this sign, your hands to beckon her to you.
Subject(s): Frith, Mary (1584-1659); Cutpurse, Moll

PROLOGUE

A PLAY expected long makes the audience look
For wonders; that each scene should be a book,
Composed to all perfection: each one comes
And brings a play in's head with him; up he sums
That he would of a Roaring Girl have writ;
If that he finds not here, he mews at it.
Only we do entreat you think our scene
Cannot speak high, the subject being but mean;
A Roaring Girl, whose notes till now ne'er were,
Shall fill with laughter our vast theatre.
That's all which I dare promise: tragic passion,
And such grave stuff, is this day out of fashion.
I see Attention sets wide ope her gates
Of hearing, and with covetous listening waits,
To know what girl this Roaring Girl should be
For of that tribe are many. One is she
That roars at midnight in deep tavern-bowls,
That beats the watch, and constables controls:
Another roars i' the daytime, swears, stabs, gives braves,
Yet sells her soul to the lust of fools and slaves:
Both these are sub-roarers. Then there's beside
A civil city Roaring Girl, whose pride,
Feasting, and riding, shakes her husband's state,
And leaves him roaring through an iron grate.
None of these Roaring Girls is ours; she flies
With wings more lofty; thus her character lies—
Yet what need characters, when to give a guess
Is better than the person to express?
But would you know who 'tis? would you hear her name?
She's called Mad Moll; her life our acts proclaim.

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.

SIR ALEXANDER WENGRAVE.
SEBASTIAN WENGRAVE, his son.
SIR GUY FITZALLARD.
SIR DAVY DAPPER.
JACK DAPPER, his son.
SIR ADAM APPLETON.
SIR THOMAS LONG.
SIR BEAUTEOUS GANYMEDE.
LORD NOLAND.
GOSHAWK.
LAXTON.
GREENWIT.
GALLIPOT, an apothecary.
TILTYARD, a feather-seller.
OPENWORK, a sempster.
NEATFOOT, SIR A. WENGRAVE'S man.
GULL, page to JACK DAPPER.
TRAPDOOR.
TEARCAT.
Coachman.
Porter.
Tailor.
CURTLEAX, a sergeant.
HANGER, his yeoman.
Gentlemen, Cutpurses, &c.

MOLL, the Roaring Girl.
MARY FITZALLARD, daughter of SIR GUY.
MISTRESS GALLIPOT.
MISTRESS TILTYARD.
MISTRESS OPENWORK.

SCENE—LONDON.

ACT THE FIRST.

SCENE I.

A Room in Sir ALEXANDER WENGRAVE'S House.

Enter MARY FITZALLARD disguised like a Sempster, with a case for
bands,
and NEATFOOT with her, a napkin on his shoulder, and a trencher in
his hand,
as from table.

NEAT. The young gentleman, our young master, Sir Alexander's son, is
it into his
ears, sweet damsel, emblem of fragility, you desire to have a message
transported, or to be transcendent?
Mary. A private word or two, sir; nothing else.
Neat. You shall fructify in that which you come for; your pleasure
shall be satisfied to your full contentation. I will, fairest tree of
generation, watch when our young master is erected, that is to say, up, and
deliver him to this your most white hand.
Mary. Thanks, sir.
Neat. And withal certify him, that I have culled out for him, now his
belly is replenished, a daintier bit or modicum than any lay upon his trencher
at dinner. Hath he notion of your name, I beseech your chastity?
Mary. One, sir, of whom he bespake falling bands.
Neat. Falling bands? It shall so be given him. If you please to
venture
your modesty in the hall amongst a curl-pated company of rude serving-men, and
take such as they can set before you, you shall be most seriously and
ingeniously welcome.
Mary. I have dined indeed already, sir.
Neat. Or will you vouchsafe to kiss the lip of a cup of rich Orleans
in
the buttery amongst our waiting-women?
Mary. Not now, in truth, sir.
Neat. Our young master shall then have a feeling of your being here;
presently it shall so be given him.
Mary. I humbly thank you, sir. But that my bosom
[Exit NEATFOOT.
Is full of bitter sorrows, I could smile
To see this formal ape play antic tricks;
But in my breast a poisoned arrow sticks,
And smiles cannot become me. Love woven slightly,
Such as thy false heart makes, wears out as lightly;
But love being truly bred i' the soul, like mine,
Bleeds even to death at the least wound it takes,—
The more we quench this fire, the less it slakes:
O me!

Enter SEBASTIAN WENGRAVE with NEATFOOT.

Seb. A sempster speak with me, sayest thou?
Neat. Yes, sir; she's there, viva voce to deliver her auricular
confession.
Seb. With me, sweetheart? what is't?
Mary. I have brought home your bands, sir.
Seb. Bands?—Neatfoot.
Neat. Sir?
Seb. Prithee, look in; for all the gentlemen are upon rising.
Neat. Yes, sir; a most methodical attendance shall be given.
Seb. And dost hear? if my father call for me, say I am busy with a
sempster.
Neat. Yes, sir; he shall know it that you are busied with a needle-
woman.
Seb. In's ear, good Neatfoot.
Neat. It shall be so given him. [Exit.
Seb. Bands? you're mistaken, sweetheart, I bespake none:
When, where, I prithee? what bands? let me see them.
Mary. Yes, sir; a bond fast sealed with solemn oaths,
Subscribed unto, as I thought, with your soul;Delivered as your deed in sight
of
Heaven:
Is this bond cancelled? have you forgot me?
Seb. Ha! life of my life, Sir Guy Fitzallard's daughter?
What has transformed my love to this strange shape?
Stay; make all sure [Shuts the door]; so: now speak and be brief,
Because the wolf's at door that lies in wait
To prey upon us both. Albeit mine eyes
Are blest by thine, yet this so strange disguise
Holds me with fear and wonder.
Mary. Mine's a loathed sight;
Why from it are you banished else so long?
Seb. I must cut short my speech: in broken language
Thus much, sweet Moll; I must thy company shun;
I court another Moll: my thoughts must run
As a horse runs that's blind round in a mill,
Out every step, yet keeping one path still.
Mary. Umph! must you shun my company? in one knot
Have both our hands by the hands of Heaven been tied,
Now to be broke? I thought me once your bride;
Our fathers did agree on the time when:
And must another bedfellow fill my room?
Seb. Sweet maid, let's lose no time; 'tis in Heaven's book
Set down, that I must have thee; an oath we took
To keep our vows: but when the knight your father
Was from mine parted, storms began to sit
Upon my covetous father's brows, which fell
From them on me. He reckoned up what gold
This marriage would draw from him; at which he swore,
To lose so much blood could not grieve him more:
He then dissuades me from thee, called thee not fair
And asked what is she but a beggar's heir?
He scorned thy dowry of five thousand marks.
If such a sum of money could be found,
And I would match with that, he'd not undo it,
Provided his bags might add nothing to it;
But vowed, if I took thee, nay, more, did swear it,
Save birth, from him I nothing should inherit.
Mary. What follows then? my shipwreck?
Seb. Dearest, no:
Though wildly in a labyrinth I go,
My end is to meet thee: with a side-wind
Must I now sail, else I no haven can find,
But both must sink for ever. There's a wench
Called Moll, mad Moll, or merry Moll; a creature
So strange in quality, a whole city takes
Note of her name and person: all that affection
I owe to thee, on her in counterfeit passion
I spend, to mad my father: he believes
I dote upon this Roaring Girl, and grieves
As it becomes a father for a son
That could be so bewitched: yet I'll go on
This crooked way, sigh still for her, feign dreams
In which I'll talk only of her: these streams
Shall, I hope, force my father to consent
That here I anchor, rather than be rent
Upon a rock so dangerous. Art thou pleased,
Because thou seest we're waylaid, that I take
A path that's safe, though it be far about?
Mary. My prayers with Heaven guide thee!
Seb. Then I will on:
My father is at hand; kiss, and begone!
Hours shall be watched for meetings: I must now,
As men for fear, to a strange idol bow.
Mary. Farewell!
Seb. I'll guide thee forth: when next we meet,
A story of Moll shall make our mirth more sweet.
[Exeunt.

Enter Sir ALEXANDER WENGRAVE, Sir DAVY DAPPER, Sir ADAM APPLETON, GOSHAWK,
LAXTON, and Gentlemen.

All. Thanks, good Sir Alexander, for our bounteous cheer!
Sir Alex. Fie, fie, in giving thanks you pay too dear.
Sir Davy. When bounty spreads the table, faith,' twere sin,
At going off if thanks should not step in.
Sir Alex. No more of thanks, no more. Ay, marry, sir.
The inner room was too close: how do you like
This parlour, gentlemen?
All. O, passing well!
Sir Adam. What a sweet breath the air casts here, so cool!
Gos. I like the prospect best.
Lax. See how 'tis furnished!
Sir Davy. A very fair sweet room.
Sir Alex. Sir Davy Dapper,
The furniture that doth adorn this room
Cost many a fair gray groat ere it came here;
But good things are most cheap when they're most dear.
Nay, when you look into my galleries,
How bravely they're trimmed up, you all shall swear
You're highly pleased to see what's set down there:
Stories of men and women, mixed together,
Fair ones with foul, like sunshine in wet weather;
Within one square a thousand heads are laid,
So close that all of heads the room seems made;
As many faces there, filled with blithe looks,
Show like the promising titles of new books
Writ merrily, the readers being their own eyes,
Which seem to move and to give plaudites;
And here and there, whilst with obsequious ears
Thronged heaps do listen, a cut-purse thrusts and leers
With hawk's eyes for his prey; I need not show him;
By a hanging, villanous look yourselves may know him,
The face is drawn so rarely: then, sir, below
The very floor, as 'twere, waves to and fro,
And, like a floating island, seems to move
Upon a sea bound in with shores above.
All. These sights are excellent!
Sir Alex. I'll show you all:
Since we are met, make our parting comical.

Re-enter SEBASTIAN WENGRAVE with GREENWIT.

Seb. This gentleman, my friend, will take his leave, sir.
Sir Alex. Ha! take his leave, Sebastian, who?
Seb. This gentleman.
Sir Alex. Your love, sir, has already given me some time,
And if you please to trust my age with more,
It shall pay double interest: good sir, stay.
Green. I have been too bold.
Sir Alex. Not so, sir: a merry day
Mongst friends being spent, is better than gold saved.—
Some wine, some wine! Where be these knaves I keep?

Re-enter NEATFOOT with several Servants.

Neat. At your worshipful elbow, sir.
Sir Alex. You're kissing my maids, drinking, or fast asleep.
Neat. Your worship has given it us right.
Sir Alex. You varlets, stir!
Chairs, stools, and cushions!—
[Servants bring in wine, and place chairs, &c. Prithee, Sir
Davy
Dapper,
Make that chair thine.
Sir Davy. 'Tis but an easy gift;
And yet I thank you for it, sir: I'll take it.
Sir Alex. A chair for old Sir Adam Appleton!
Neat. A back friend to your worship.
Sir Adam. Marry, good Neatfoot,
I thank thee for't; back friends sometimes are good.
Sir Alex. Pray, make that stool your perch, good Master Goshawk.
Gos. I stoop to your lure, sir.
Sir Alex. Son Sebastian.
Take Master Greenwit to you.
Seb. Sit, dear friend.
Sir Alex. Nay, Master Laxton—furnish Master Laxton
With what he wants, a stone,—a stool, I would say,
A stool.
Lax. I had rather stand, sir.
Sir Alex. I know you had, good Master Laxton: so, so. [Exeunt
NEATFOOT and Servants.
Now here's a mess of friends; and, gentlemen,
Because time's glass shall not be running long,
I'll quicken it with a pretty tale.
Sir Davy. Good tales do well
In these bad days, where vice does so excel.
Sir Adam. Begin, Sir Alexander.
Sir Alex. Last day I met
An agèd man, upon whose head was scored
A debt of just so many years as these
Which I owe to my grave: the man you all know.
All. His name, I pray you, sir.
Sir Alex. Nay, you shall pardon me:
But when he saw me, with a sigh that brake,
Or seemed to break, his heart-strings, thus he spake:
O my good knight, says he (and then his eyes
Were richer even by that which made them poor,
They'd spent so many tears they had no more),
O sir, says he, you know it! for you ha' seen
Blessings to rain upon mine house and me:
Fortune, who slaves men, was my slave; her wheel
Hath spun me golden threads; for, I thank Heaven,
I ne'er had but one cause to curse my stars.
I asked him then what that one cause might be.
All. So, sir.
Sir Alex. He paused: and as we often see
A sea so much becalmed, there can be found
No wrinkle on his brow, his waves being drowned
In their own rage; but when the imperious winds
Use strange invisible tyranny to shake
Both Heaven's and earth's foundation at their noise,
The seas, swelling with wrath to part that fray,
Rise up, and are more wild, more mad than they:
Even so this good old man was by my question
Stirred up to roughness; you might see his gall
Flow even in's eyes; then grew he fantastical.
Sir Davy. Fantastical? ha, ha!
Sir Alex. Yes; and talked oddly.
Sir Adam. Pray, sir, proceed:
How did this old man end?
Sir Alex. Marry, sir, thus:
He left his wild fit to read o'er his cards;
Yet then, though age cast snow on all his hairs.
He joyed, because, says he, the god of gold
Has been to me no niggard; that disease,
Of which all old men sicken, avarice,
Never infected me—
Lax. He means not himself, I'm sure. [Aside.
Sir Alex. For, like a lamp
Fed with continual oil, I spend and throw
My light to all that need it, yet have still
Enough to serve myself: O but, quoth he,
Though Heaven's dew fall thus on this aged tree,
I have a son that, like a wedge, doth cleave
My very heart-root!
Sir Davy. Had he such a son?
Seb. Now I do smell a fox strongly. [Aside.
Sir Alex. Let's see: no, Master Greenwit is not yet
So mellow in years as he; but as like Sebastian,
Just like my son Sebastian, such another.
Seb. How finely, like a fencer,
My father fetches his by-blows to hit me!
But if I beat you not at your own weapon
Of subtlety— [Aside.
Sir Alex. This son, saith he, that should be
The column and main arch unto my house,
The crutch unto my age, becomes a whirlwind
Shaking the firm foundation.
Sir Adam. 'Tis some prodigal.
Seb. Well shot, old Adam Bell! [Aside.
Sir Alex. No city-monster neither, no prodigal,
But sparing, wary, civil, and, though wifeless,
An excellent husband; and such a traveller,
He has more tongues in his head than some have teeth.
Sir Davy. I have but two in mine.
Gos. So sparing and so wary?
What, then, could vex his father so?
Sir Alex. O, a woman!
Seb. A flesh-fly, that can vex any man.
Sir Alex. A scurvy woman,
On whom the passionate old man swore he doted;
A creature, saith he, nature hath brought forth
To mock the sex of woman. It is a thing
One knows not how to name: her birth began
Ere she was all made: 'tis woman more than man,
Man more than woman; and, which to none can hap,
The sun gives her two shadows to one shape;
Nay, more, let this strange thing walk, stand, or sit,
No blazing star draws more eyes after it.
Sir Davy. A monster! 'tis some monster!
Sir Alex. She's a varlet.
Seb. Now is my cue to bristle.[Aside.
Sir Alex. A naughty pack.
Seb. 'Tis false!
Sir Alex. Ha, boy?
Seb. 'Tis false!
Sir Alex. What's false? I say she's naught.
Seb. I say, that tongue
That dares speak so, but yours, sticks in the throat
Of a rank villain: set yourself aside—
Sir Alex. So, sir, what then?
Seb. Any here else had lied.—
I think I shall fit you.[Aside.
Sir Alex. Lie?
Seb. Yes.
Sir Davy. Doth this concern him?
Sir Alex. Ah, sirrah-boy,
Is your blood heated? boils it? are you stung?
I'll pierce you deeper yet.—O my dear friends,
I am that wretched father! this that son,
That sees his ruin, yet headlong on doth run.
Sir Adam. Will you love such a poison?
Sir Davy. Fie, fie.
Seb. You're all mad.
Sir Alex. Thou'rt sick at heart, yet feel'st it not: of all these,
What gentleman but thou, knowing his disease
Mortal, would shun the cure!—O Master Greenwit,
Would you to such an idol bow?
Green. Not I, sir.
Sir Alex. Here's Master Laxton; has he mind to a woman
As thou hast?
Lax. No, not I, sir.
Sir Alex. Sir, I know it.
Lax. Their good parts are so rare, their bad so common,
I will have nought to do with any woman.
Sir Davy. 'Tis well done, Master Laxton.
Sir Alex. O thou cruel boy,
Thou wouldst with lust an old man's life destroy!
Because thou seest I'm half-way in my grave,
Thou shovel'st dust upon me: would thou mightst have
Thy wish, most wicked, most unnatural!
Sir Davy. Why, sir, 'tis thought Sir Guy Fitzallard's daughter
Shall wed your son Sebastian.
Sir Alex. Sir Davy Dapper,
I have upon my knees wooed this fond boy
To take that virtuous maiden.
Seb. Hark you; a word, sir.
You on your knees have cursed that virtuous maiden,
And me for loving her; yet do you now
Thus baffle me to my face? Wear not your knees
In such entreats; give me Fitzallard's daughter.
Sir Alex. I'll give thee rats-bane rather.
Seb. Well, then, you know
What dish I mean to feed upon.
Sir Alex. Hark, gentlemen! he swears
To have this cut-purse drab, to spite my gall.
All. Master Sebastian—
Seb. I am deaf to you all.
I'm so bewitched, so bound to my desires,
Tears, prayers, threats, nothing can quench out those fires
That burn within me, [Exit.
Sir Alex. Her blood shall quench it, then.— [Aside.
Lose him not; O, dissuade him, gentlemen!
Sir Davy. He shall be weaned, I warrant you.
Sir Alex. Before his eyes
Lay down his shame, my grief, his miseries.
All. No more, no more; away!
[Exeunt all but Sir ALEXANDER WENGRAVE.
Sir Alex. I wash a negro,
Losing both pains and cost: but take thy flight,
I'll be most near thee when I'm least in sight.
Wild buck, I'll hunt thee breathless: thou shalt run on,
But I will turn thee when I'm not thought upon

Enter TRAPDOOR with a letter.

Now, sirrah, what are you? leave your ape's tricks, and speak.
Trap. A letter from my captain to your worship.
Sir Alex. O, O, now I remember; 'tis to prefer thee into my service.
Trap. To be a shifter under your worship's nose of a clean trencher,
when there's a good bit upon't.
Sir Alex. Troth, honest fellow—Hum—ha—let me see—
This knave shall be the axe to hew that down
At which I stumble; has a face that promiseth
Much of a villain: I will grind his wit,
And, if the edge prove fine, make use of it.— [Aside.
Come hither, sirrah: canst thou be secret, ha?
Trap. As two crafty attorneys plotting the undoing of their clients.
Sir Alex. Didst never, as thou'st walked about this town,
Hear of a wench called Moll,—mad, merry Moll?
Trap. Moll Cut-purse, sir?
Sir Alex. The same; dost thou know her, then?
Trap. As well as I know 'twill rain upon Simon and Jude's day next: I
will sift all the taverns i' the city, and drink half-pots with all the
watermen
a' the Bank-side, but, if you will, sir, I'll find her out.
Sir Alex. That task is easy; do't then: hold thy hand up.
What's this? is't burnt?
Trap. No, sir, no; a little singed with making fireworks.
Sir Alex. There's money, spend it; that being spent, fetch more.
[Gives money.
Trap. O sir, that all the poor soldiers in England had such a
leader! For
fetching, no water spaniel is like me.
Sir Alex. This wench we speak of strays so from her kind,
Nature repents she made her: 'tis a mermaid
Has toled my son to shipwreck.
Trap. I'll cut her comb for you.
Sir Alex. I'll tell out gold for thee, then. Hunt her forth,
Cast out a line hung full of silver hooks
To catch her to thy company: deep spendings
May draw her that's most chaste to a man's bosom.
Trap. The jingling of golden bells, and a good fool with a
hobbyhorse,
will draw all the whores i' the town to dance in a morris.
Sir Alex. Or rather, for that's best (they say sometimes She goes in
breeches), follow her as her man.
Trap. And when her breeches are off, she shall follow me.
Sir Alex. Beat all thy brains to serve her.
Trap. Zounds, sir, as country wenches beat cream till butter comes.
Sir Alex. Play thou the subtle spider; weave fine nets
To ensnare her very life.
Trap. Her life?
Sir Alex. Yes; suck
Her heart-blood, if thou canst: twist thou but cords
To catch her, I'll find law to hang her up.
Trap. Spoke like a worshipful bencher!
Sir Alex. Trace all her steps: at this she-fox's den
Watch what lambs enter; let me play the shepherd
To save their throats from bleeding, and cut hers.
Trap. This is the goll shall do't.
Sir Alex. Be firm, and gain me
Ever thine own: this done, I entertain thee.
How is thy name?
Trap. My name, sir, is Ralph Trapdoor, honest Ralph.
Sir Alex. Trapdoor, be like thy name, a dangerous step
For her to venture on; but unto me—
Trap. As fast as your sole to your boot or shoe, sir.
Sir Alex. Hence, then; be little seen here as thou canst;
I'll still be at thine elbow.
Trap. The trapdoor's set.
Moll, if you budge, you're gone: this me shall crown;
A roaring boy the roaring girl puts down.
Sir Alex. God-a-mercy, lose no time. [Exeunt.

ACT THE SECOND

SCENE I.

Three Shops open in a rank: the first an Apothecary's Shop, the next a
Feather-shop, the third a Sempster's Shop; Mistress GALLIPOT in the
first,
Mistress TILTYARD in the next, OPENWORK and Mistress OPENWORK in the
third.

Enter LAXTON, GOSHAWK, and GREENWIT.

MIS. OPEN. Gentlemen, what is't you lack? what is't you buy? see fine bands
and
ruffs, fine lawns, fine cambrics: what is't you lack, gentle men? what is't you

buy?
Lax. Yonder's the shop.
Gos. Is that she?
Lax. Peace.
Green. She that minces tobacco?
Lax. Ay; she's a gentlewoman born, I can tell you, though it be her
hard fortune now to shred Indian pot herbs.
Gos. O sir, 'tis many a good woman's fortune, when her husband turns
bankrout, to begin with pipes and set up again.
Lax. And, indeed, the raising of the woman is the lifting up of the
man's head at all times; if one flourish, t'other will bud as fast, I warrant
ye.
Gos. Come, thou'rt familiarly acquainted there, I grope that.
Lax. An' you grope no better i' the dark, you may chance lie i' the
ditch when you're drunk.
Gos. Go, thou'rt a mystical lecher!
Lax. I will not deny but my credit may take up an ounce of pure
smoke.
Gos. May take up an ell of pure smock! away, go!— 'Tis the closes
t
striker! life, I think he commits venery forty foot deep; no man's aware on't.
I, like a palpable smockster, go to work so openly with the tricks of art,
that
I'm as apparently seen as a naked boy in a phial; and were it not for a
gift of
treachery that I have in me, to betray my friend when he puts most trust in
me—mass, yonder he is too!—and by his injury to make good my
access to
her, I should appear as defective in courting as a farmer's son the
first day of
his feather, that doth nothing at court but woo the hangings and glass windows
for a month together, and some broken waiting-women for ever after. I find
those
imperfections in my venery, that were't not for flattery and falsehood, I
should
want discourse and impudence; and he that wants impudence among women is
worthy
to be kicked out at bed's feet. He shall not see me yet. [Aside.
Green. Troth, this is finely shred.
Lax. O, women are the best mincers.
Mis. G. 'Thad been a good phrase for a cook's wife, sir.
Lax. But 'twill serve generally, like the front of a new almanac, as
thus:—calculated for the meridian of cooks' wifes, but generally for all
English women.
Mis. G. Nay, you shall ha't, sir; I have filled it for you.
[She puts
the pipe to the fire.
Lax. The pipe's in a good hand, and I wish mine always so.
Green. But not to be used a' that fashion.
Lax. O, pardon me, sir, I understand no French. I pray, be covered.
Jack, a pipe of rich smoke!
Gos. Rich smoke? that's sixpence a pipe, is't?
Green. To me, sweet lady.
Mis. G. Be not forgetful; respect my credit; seem strange:
art and wit
makes a fool of suspicion; pray, be wary.
Lax. Pish! I warrant you.—Come, how is't, gallants?
Green. Pure and excellent.
Lax. I thought 'twas good, you were grown so silent: you
are like those
that love not to talk at victuals, though they make a worse noise i' the nose
than a common fiddler's 'prentice, and discourse a whole supper with
snuffling.—I must speak a word with you anon.
Mis. G. Make your way wisely, then.
Gos. O, what else, sir? he's perfection itself; full of manners, but
not an acre of ground belonging to 'em.
Green. Ay, and full of form; has ne'er a good stool in's chamber.
Gos. But above all, religious; he preyeth daily upon elder brothers.
Green. And valiant above measure; has run three streets from a
sergeant.
Lax. Puh, puh. [He blows tobacco in their faces.
Green. O, puh!
Gos. Ho, ho!
Lax. So, so.
Mis. G. What's the matter now, sir?
Lax. I protest I'm in extreme want of money; if you can supply me now
with any means, you do me the greatest pleasure, next to the bounty of your
love, as ever poor gentleman tasted.
Mis. G. What's the sum would pleasure ye, sir? though you deserve
nothing less at my hands.
Lax. Why, 'tis but for want of opportunity, thou knowest.—I put
her off with opportunity still: by this light, I hate her, but for means to
keep
me in fashion with gallants; for what I take from her, I spend upon other
wenches; bear her in hand still: she has wit enough to rob her husband, and I
ways enough to consume the money. [Aside.]—Why, how now? what, the
chin-cough?
Gos. Thou hast the cowardliest trick to come before a man's face, and
strangle him ere he be aware! I could find in my heart to make a quarrel in
earnest.
Lax. Pox, an thou dost—thou knowest I never use to fight with my
friends—thou'lt but lose thy labour in't.—Jack Dapper!

Enter JACK DAPPER and GULL.

Green. Monsieur Dapper, I dive down to your ankles.
J. Dap. Save ye, gentlemen all three, in a peculiar salute.
Gos. He were ill to make a lawyer; he despatches three at once.
Lax. So, well said.—But is this of the same tobacco, Mistress
Gallipot? Mis. G. The same you had at first, sir.
Lax. I wish it no better: this will serve to drink at my chamber.
Gos. Shall we taste a pipe on't?
Lax. Not of this, by my troth, gentlemen, I have sworn before you.
Gos. What, not Jack Dapper?
Lax. Pardon me, sweet Jack; I'm sorry I made such a rash oath, but
foolish oaths must stand: where art going, Jack?
J. Dap. Faith to buy one feather.
Lax. One feather? the fool's peculiar still. [Aside.
J. Dap. Gull.
Gull. Master?
J. Dap. Here's three halfpence for your ordinary, boy; meet me an
hour
hence in Paul's.
Gull. How? three single halfpence? life, this will scarce serve a man
in sauce, a ha'p'orth of mustard, a ha'p'orth of oil, and a ha'p'orth of
vinegar,—what's left then for the pickle herring? This shows like small
beer i' the morning after a great surfeit of wine o'ernight: he could spend
his
three pound last night in a supper amongst girls and brave bawdyhouse boys: I
thought his pockets cackled not for nothing: these are the eggs of three
pound,
I'll go sup 'em up presently.
[Aside, and Exit.
Lax. Eight, nine, ten angels: good wench, i'faith, and one that loves
darkness well; she puts out a candle with the best tricks of any
drugster's wife
in England: but that which mads her, I rail upon opportunity
still, and take no
notice on't. The other night she would needs lead me into a room with a candle
in her hand to show me a naked picture, where no sooner entered, but the
candle
was sent of an errand: now, I not intending to understand her, but, like a puny

at the inns of venery, called for another light innocently; thus reward I all
her cunning with simple mistaking. I know she cozens her husband to keep me,
and
I'll keep her honest as long as I can, to make the poor man some part of
amends.
An honest mind of a whoremaster! how think you amongst you? What, a
fresh pipe?
draw in a third man?
Gos. No, you're a hoarder, you engross by the ounces.
J. Dap. [At the feather-shop.]—Pooh, I like it not.
Mis. T. What feather is't you'd have, sir?
These are most worn and most in fashion:
Amongst the beaver gallants, the stone riders,
The private stage's audience, the twelvepenny-stool gentlemen,
I can inform you 'tis the general feather.
J. Dap. And therefore I mislike it: tell me of general!
Now, a continual Simon and Jude's rain
Beat all your feathers as flat down as pancakes!
Show me—a—spangled feather.
Mis. T. O, to go a-feasting with;
You'd have it for a hench-boy, you shall.
Open. [At the Sempster's shop.]—Mass, I had quite forgot!
His honour's footman was here last night, wife;
Ha' you done with my lord's shirt?
Mis. O. What's that to you, sir?
I was this morning at his honour's lodging,
Ere such a snake as you crept out of your shell.
Open. O, 'twas well done, good wife!
Mis. O. I hold it better, sir,
Than if you had done't yourself.
Open. Nay, so say I:
But is the countess's smock almost done, mouse?
Mis. O. Here lies the cambric, sir; but wants, I fear me.
Open. I'll resolve you of that presently.
Mis. O. Heyday! O audacious groom!
Dare you presume to noble women's linen?
Keep you your yard to measure shepherd's holland:
I must confine you, I see that.
Gos. [At the tobacco-shop.]—What say you to this gear?
Lax. I dare the arrant'st critic in tobacco
To lay one fault upon't.

Enter MOLL, in a frieze jerkin and a black safeguard.

Gos. Life, yonder's Moll!
Lax. Moll! which Moll?
Gos. Honest Moll.
Lax. Prithee, let's call her.—Moll!
Gos. Moll, Moll!
Green. Pist, Moll!
Moll. How now? what's the matter?
Gos. A pipe of good tobacco, Moll?
Moll. I cannot stay.
Gos. Nay, Moll, pooh, prithee, hark; but one word, i'faith.
Moll. Well, what is't?
Green. Prithee, come hither, sirrah.
Lax. Heart, I would give but too much money to be nibbling with that
wench! life, sh'as the spirit of four great parishes, and a voice that will
drown all the city! Methinks a brave captain might get all his soldiers upon
her, and ne'er be beholding to a company of Mile End milksops, if
he could come
on and come off quick enough: such a Moll were a marrow-bone
before an Italian;
he would cry buona roba till his ribs were nothing but bone. I'll lay hard
siege to her: money is that aquafortis that eats into many a maidenhead; where
the walls are flesh and blood, I'll ever pierce through with a golden auger.
[Aside.
Gos. Now, thy judgment, Moll? is't not good?
Moll. Yes, faith, 'tis very good tobacco.—How do you sell and
ounce?—Farewell.—God b'i' you, Mistress Gallipot.
Gos. Why, Moll, Moll!
Moll. I cannot stay now, i'faith: I am going to buy a shag-ruff; the
shop will be shut in presently.
Gos. 'Tis the maddest fantasticalest girl! I never knew so much flesh
and so much nimbleness put together.
Lax. She slips from one company to another, like a fat eel between a
Dutchman's fingers.—I'll watch my time for her. [Aside.
Mis. G. Some will not stick to say she is a man. And some, both man and
woman.
Lax. That were excellent: she might first cuckold the husband, and
then
make him do as much for the wife. Moll. [At the feather-shop.] Save you
;
how does Mistress Tiltyard?
J. Dap. Moll!
Moll. Jack Dapper!
J. Dap. How dost, Moll?
Moll. I'll tell thee by and by; I go but to the next shop.
J. Dap. Thou shalt find me here this hour about a feather.
Moll. Nay, an a feather hold you in play a whole hour, a goose will
last you all the days of your life.—Let me see a good shag-ruff.
Open. [At the Sempster's shop.] Mistress Mary, that shalt thou,
i'faith, and the best in the shop.
Mis. O. How now? greetings! love-terms, with a pox, between you! have
I
found out one of your haunts? I send you for hollands, and you're i' the low
countries with a mischief. I'm served with good ware by the shift; that makes
it
lie dead so long upon my hands: I were as good shut up shop, for when I open
it
I take nothing.
Open. Nay, an you fall a-ringing once, the devil cannot stop
you.—I'll out of the belfry as fast as I can, Moll. [Retires.
Miss. O. Get you from my shop!
Moll. I come to buy.
Mis. O. I'll sell ye nothing; I warn ye my house and shop.
Moll. You, goody Openwork, you that prick out a poor living,
And sews many a bawdy skin-coat together;
Thou private pandress between shirt and smock;
I wish thee for a minute but a man,
Thou shouldst ne'er use more shapes; but, as thou art,
I pity my revenge. Now my spleen's up,
I would not mock it willingly.—

Enter a Fellow, with a long rapier by his side.

Ha! be thankful;
Now I forgive thee.
Mis. O. Marry, hang thee, I never asked forgiveness in my life.
Moll. You, goodman swine's face!
Fel. What, will you murder me?
Moll. You remember, slave, how you abused me t'other night in a
tavern.
Fel. Not I, by this light!
Moll. No, but by candle-light you did: you have tricks to save your
oaths; reservations, have you? and I have reserved somewhat for you.
[Strikes
him.] As you like that, call for more; you know the sign again.
Fel. Pox on't, had I brought any company along with me to have borne
witness on't, 'twould ne'er have grieved me; but to be struck and nobody by,
'tis my ill fortune still. Why, tread upon a worm, they say 'twill turn tail;
but indeed a gentleman should have more manners.
[Aside, and exit.
Lax. Gallantly performed, i'faith, Moll, and manfully! I love thee for
ever for't: base rogue, had he offered but the least counter-buff, by this
hand,
I was prepared for him!
Moll. You prepared for him? why should you be prepared for him?
was he
any more than a man?
Lax. No, nor so much by a yard and a handful, London measure.
Moll. Why do you speak this then? do you think I cannot ride a stone-
horse, unless one lead him by the snaffle?
Lax. Yes, and sit him bravely; I know thou canst, Moll: 'twas but an
honest mistake through love, and I'll make amends for't anyway. Prithee,
sweet,
plump Moll, when shall thou and I go out a' town together?
Moll. Whither? to Tyburn, prithee?
Lax. Mass, that's out a' town indeed: thou hangest so many jests upon
thy friends still! I mean honestly to Brainford, Staines, or Ware.
Moll. What to do there?
Lax. Nothing but be merry and lie together: I'll hire a coach with
four
horses.
Moll. I thought 'twould be a beastly journey. You may leave out one
well; three horses will serve, if I play the jade myself.
Lax. Nay, pish, thou'rt such another kicking wench? Prithee, be kind,
and let's meet.
Moll. 'Tis hard but we shall meet, sir.
Lax. Nay, but appoint the place then; there's ten angels in fair
gold,
Moll: you see I do not trifle with you; do but say thou wilt meet me, and I'll
have a coach ready for thee.
Moll. Why, here's my hand, I'll meet you, sir.
Lax. O good gold! [Aside.]—The place, sweet Moll?
Moll. It shall be your appointment.
Lax. Somewhat near Holborn, Moll.
Moll. In Gray's Inn Fields then.
Lax. A match.
Moll. I'll meet you there.
Lax. The hour?
Moll. Three.
Lax. That will be time enough to sup at Brainford.
Open. I am of such a nature, sir, I cannot endure the house when she
scolds: sh'as a tongue will be heard further in a still morning than Saint
Antling's bell. She rails upon me for foreign wenching, that I being a freeman
must needs keep a whore i' the suburbs, and seek to impoverish the liberties.
When we fall out, I trouble you still to make all whole with my wife.
Gos. No trouble at all; 'tis a pleasure to me to join things
together.
Open. Go thy ways, I do this but to try thy honesty,
Goshawk. [Aside.
J. Dap. [At the feather-shop.]—How likest thou this, Moll?
Moll. O, singularly; you're fitted now for a bunch.—He looks for
all the world, with those spangled feathers, like a nobleman's bed-post. The
purity of your wench would I fain try; she seems like Kent unconquered, and, I
believe, as many wiles are in her. O, the gallants of these times are shallow
lechers! they put not their courtship home enough to a wench: 'tis impossible
to
know what woman is throughly honest, because she's ne'er thoroughly tried; I
am
of that certain belief, there are more queans in this town of their own making
than of any man's provoking: where lies the slackness then? many a poor soul
would down, and there's nobody will push 'em:
Women are courted, but ne'er soundly tried,
As many walk in spurs that never ride. [Aside.
Mis. O. [At the Sempster's shop.]—O, abominable!
Gos. Nay, more, I tell you in private, he keeps a whore i' the
suburbs.
Mis. O. O spittle dealing! I came to him a gentle-woman born:
I'll show
you mine arms when you please, sir.
Gos. I had rather see your legs, and begin that way.
[Aside.
Mis. O. 'Tis well known he took me from a lady's service, where I was
well beloved of the steward: I had my Latin tongue, and a spice of the French,
before I came to him; and now doth he keep a suburbian whore under my
nostrils?
Gos. There's ways enough to cry quit with him: hark in thine ear.
[Whispers her.
Mis. O. There's a friend worth a million!
Moll. I'll try one spear against your chastity, Mistress Tiltyard,
though it prove too short by the burgh.
[Aside.

Enter TRAPDOOR.

Trap. Mass, here she is: I'm bound already to serve her, though it be
but a sluttish trick. [Aside.]—Bless my hopeful young mistress with
long life and great limbs; send her the upper hand of all bailiffs and their
hungry adherents!
Moll. How now? what art thou?
Trap. A poor ebbing gentleman, that would gladly wait for the young
flood of your service.
Moll. My service? what should move you to offer your service to me,
sir?
Trap. The love I bear to your heroic spirit and masculine womanhood.
Moll. So, sir! put case we should retain you to us, what parts are
there in you for a gentlewoman's service?
Trap. Of two kinds, right worshipful; moveable and
immoveable—moveable to run of errands, and immoveable to stand when you
have occasion to use me.
Moll. What strength have you?
Trap. Strength, Mistress Moll? I have gone up into a steeple, and
stayed the great bell as't has been ringing; stopped a windmill going—
Moll. And never struck down yourself?
Trap. Stood as upright as I do at this present.
[MOLL trips up his heels.
Moll. Come, I pardon you for this; it shall be no disgrace to you: I
have
struck up the heels of the high German's size ere now. What, not stand?
Trap. I am of that nature, where I love, I'll be at my mistress' foot
to do her service.
Moll. Why, well said; but say your mistress should receive injury,
have
you the spirit of fighting in you? durst you second her?
Trap. Life, I have kept a bridge myself, and drove seven at a time
before me!
Moll. Ay?
Trap. But they were all Lincolnshire bullocks, by my troth. [Aside.
Moll. Well, meet me in Gray's Inn Fields between three and four this
afternoon, and, upon better consideration, we'll retain you.
Trap. I humbly thank your good mistresship.—I'll crack your neck
for this kindness. [Aside, and exit.
Lax. Remember three. [MOLL meets LAXTON.
Moll. Nay, if I fail you, hang me.
Lax. Good wench, i'faith!
Moll. [Meeting OPENWORK]. Who's this?
Open. 'Tis I, Moll.
Moll. Prithee, tend they shop and prevent bastards.
Open. We'll have a pint of the same wine, i'faith, Moll.
[Exit with MOLL. A bell rings.
Gos. Hark, the bell rings! come, gentlemen. Jack Dapper, where shall's
all munch?
J. Dap. I am for Parker's ordinary.
Lax. He's a good guest to'm, he deserves his board; he draws all the
gentlemen in a term-time thither. We'll be your followers, Jack; lead the
way.—Look you, by my faith, the fool has feathered his nest well.
[Exeunt JACK DAPPER, LAXTON, GOSHAWK, and GREENWIT.

Enter GALLIPOT, TILTYARD, and Servants, with water spaniels and a
duck.

Tilt. Come, shut up your shops. Where's Master Openwork?
Mis. G. Nay, ask not me, Master Tiltyard.
Tilt. Where's his water-dog?
puh—pist—hur—hur—pist!
Gal. Come, wenches, come; we're going all to Hogsdon.
Mis. G. To Hogsdon, husband?
Gal. Ay, to Hogsdon, pigsnie.
Mis. G. I'm not ready, husband.
Gal. Faith, that's well—hum—pist—pist.—
[Spits in the dog's mouth.
Come, Mistress Openwork, you are so long!
Mis. O. I have no joy of my life, Master Gallipot.
Gal. Pish, let your boy lead his water-spaniel along, and we'll show
you the bravest sport at Parlous Pond.— Hey, Trug, hey, Trug, hey, Trug!
here's the best duck in England, except my wife; hey, hey, hey! fetch, fetch,
fetch!—
Come let's away:
Of all the year this is the sportful'st day. [Exeunt.

SCENE II.

A Street.

Enter SEBASTIAN WENGRAVE.

Seb. If a man have a free will, where should the use More perfect
shine
than in his will to love?
All creatures have their liberty in that.

Enter behind Sir ALEXANDER WENGRAVE listening.

Though else kept under servile yoke and fear,
The very bond-slave has his freedom there.
Amongst a world of creatures voiced and silent,
Must my desires wear fetters?—Yea, are you
So near? then I must break with my heart's truth,
Meet grief at a back way.—Well: why, suppose
The two-leaved tongues of slander or of truth
Pronounce Moll loathsome; if before my love
She appear fair, what injury have I?
I have the thing I like: in all things else
Mine own eye guides me, and I find 'em prosper.
Life! what should ail it now? I know that man
Ne'er truly loves,—if he gainsay't he lies,—
That winks and marries with his father's eyes:
I'll keep mine own wide open.

Enter MOLL and a Porter with a viol on his back.

Sir Alex. Here's brave wilfulness!
A made match! here she comes; they met a' purpose.
[Aside.
Por. Must I carry this great fiddle to your chamber, Mistress Mary?
Moll. Fiddle, goodman hog-rubber? Some of these porters bear so much
for others, they have no time to carry with for themselves.
Por. To your own chamber, Mistress Mary?
Moll. Who'll hear an ass speak? whither else, goodman pageant-bearer?
They're people of the worst memories! [Exit Porter.
Seb. Why, 'twere too great a burden, love, to have them
Carry things in their minds and a' their backs together.
Moll. Pardon me, sir, I thought not you so near.
Sir Alex. So, so, so! [Aside.
Seb. I would be nearer to thee, and in that fashion
That makes the best part of all creatures honest:
No otherwise I wish it.
Moll. Sir, I am so poor to requite you, you must look for nothing but
thanks of me: I have no humour to marry; I love to lie a' both sides a' the
bed
myself: and again, a' the other side, a wife, you know, ought to be obedient,
but I fear me I am too headstrong to obey; therefore I'll ne'er go about it. I
love you so well, sir, for your good will, I'd be loth you should repent your
bargain after; and therefore we'll ne'er come together at first. I have the
head
now of myself, and am man enough for a woman: marriage is but a chopping and
changing, where a maiden loses one head, and has a worse i' the place.
Sir Alex. The most comfortablest answer from a roaring girl
That ever mine ears drunk in! [Aside.
Seb. This were enough.
Now to afright a fool for ever from thee,
When 'tis the music that I love thee for.
Sir Alex. There's a boy spoils all again! [Aside.
Moll. Believe it, sir, I am not of that disdainful temper but I could
love you faithfully.
Sir Alex. A pox on you for that word! I like you not now.
You're a cunning roarer, I see that already. [Aside.
Moll. But sleep upon this once more, sir; you may chance shift a
mind to-
morrow: be not too hasty to wrong yourself; never while you live, sir, take a
wife running; many have run out at heels that have done't. You see,
sir, I speak
against myself; and if every woman would deal with their suitor so honestly,
poor younger brothers would not be so often gulled with old cozening widows,
that turn over all their wealth in trust to some kinsman, and make the poor
gentleman work hard for a pension. Fare you well, sir.
Seb. Nay, prithee, one word more.
Sir Alex. How do I wrong this girl! she puts him off still. [Aside.
Moll. Think upon this in cold blood, sir: you make as much haste as if
you were a-going upon a sturgeon voyage. Take deliberation, sir; never choose
a
wife as if you were going to Virginia.
Seb. And so we parted: my too-cursèd fate!
Sir Alex. She is but cunning, gives him longer time in't. [Aside.

Enter Tailor.

Tai. Mistress Moll, mistress Moll! so ho, ho, so ho!
Moll. There, boy, there, boy! what dost thou go ahawking after me
with
a red clout on thy finger?
Tai. I forgot to take measure on you for your new breeches.
Sir Alex. Hoyda, breeches? what, will he marry a monster with two
trinkets? what age is this! if the wife go in breeches, the man must wear long
coats like a fool. [Aside.
Moll. What fiddling's here! would not the old pattern have served your
turn!
Tai. You change the fashion: you say you'll have the great Dutch
slop,
Mistress Mary.
Moll. Why, sir, I say so still.
Tai. Your breeches, then, will take up a yard more.
Moll. Well, pray, look it be put in then.
Tai. It shall stand round and full, I warrant you.
Moll. Pray, make 'em easy enough.
Tai. I know my fault now, t'other was somewhat stiff between the legs;

I'll make these open enough, I warrant you.
Sir Alex. Here's good gear towards! I have brought up my son to marry
a
Dutch slop and a French doublet; a codpiece daughter! [Aside.
Tai. So, I have gone as far as I can go.
Moll. Why, then, farewell.
Tai. If you go presently to your chamber, Mistress
Mary, pray, send me the measure of your thigh by some honest body.
Moll. Well, sir, I'll send it by a porter presently. [Exit.
Tai. So you had need, it is a lusty one; both of them would make any
porter's back ache in England. [Exit.
Seb. I have examined the best part of man,
Reason and judgment; and in love, they tell me,
They leave me uncontrolled: he that is swayed
By an unfeeling blood, past heat of love,
His spring-time must needs err; his watch ne'er goes right
That sets his dial by a rusty clock.
Sir Alex. [Coming forward.] So; and which is that rusty clock,
sir,
you?
Seb. The clock at Ludgate, sir; it ne'er goes true.
Sir Alex. But thou go'st falser; not thy father's cares
Can keep thee right: when that insensible work
Obeys the workman's art, lets off the hour,
And stops again when time is satisfied:
But thou runn'st on; and judgment, thy main wheel,
Beats by all stops, as if the work would break,
Begun with long pains for a minute's ruin:
Much like a suffering man brought up with care,
At last bequeathed to shame and a short prayer.
Seb. I taste you bitterer than I can deserve, sir.
Sir Alex. What has betwitched thee, son? what devil or drug
Hath wrought upon the weakness of thy blood,
And betrayed all her hopes to ruinous folly?
O, wake from drowsy and enchanted shame,
Wherein thy soul sits, with a golden dream
Flattened and poisoned! I am old, my son;
O, let me prevail quickly.
For I have weightier business of mine own
Than to chide thee: I must not to my grave
As a drunkard to his bed, whereon he lies
Only to sleep, and never cares to rise:
Let me despatch in time; come no more near her.
Seb. Not honestly? not in the way of marriage?
Sir Alex. What sayst thou? marriage? in what place? the
Sessions-house?
And who shall give the bride, prithee? an indictment?
Seb. Sir, now ye take part with the world to wrong her.
Sir Alex. Why, wouldst thou in marry to be pointed at?
Alas, the number's great! do not o'erburden't.
Why, as good marry a beacon on a hill,
Which all the country fix their eyes upon,
As her thy folly dotes on. If thou long'st
To have the story of thy infamous fortunes
Serve for discourse in ordinaries and taverns,
Thou'rt in the way; or to confound thy name,
Keep on, thou canst not miss it; or to strike
Thy wretched father to untimely coldness,
Keep the left hand still, it will bring thee to't.
Yet, if no tears wrung from thy father's eyes,
Nor sighs that fly in sparkles from his sorrows,
Had power to alter what is wilful in thee,
Methinks her very name should fright thee from her,
And never trouble me.
Seb. Why, is the name of Moll so fatal, sir?
Sir Alex. Many one, sir, where suspect is entered;
For, seek all London from one end to t'other,
More whores of that name than of any then other.
Seb. What's that to her? let those blush for themselves:
Can any gilt in others condemn her?
I've vowed to love her: let all storms oppose me
That ever beat against the breast of man,
Nothing but death's black tempest shall divide us.
Sir Alex. O, folly that can dote on nought but shame!
Seb. Put case, a wanton itch runs through one name
More than another; is that name the worse,
Where honesty sits possessed in't? it should rather
Appear more excellent, and deserve more praise,
When through foul mists a brightness it can raise.
Why, there are of the devils honest gentlemen
And well descended, keep an open house,
And some a' the good man's that are arrant knaves.
He hates unworthily that by rote contemns,
For the name neither saves nor yet condemns;
And for her honesty, I've made such proof on't
In several forms, so nearly watched her ways,
I will maintain that strict against an army,
Excepting you, my father. Here's her worst,
Sh'as a bold spirit that mingles with mankind,
But nothing else come's near it: and oftentimes
Through her apparel somewhat shames her birth;
But she is loose in nothing but in mirth;
Would all Molls were no worse!
Sir Alex. This way I toil in vain, and give but aim
To infamy and ruin: he will fall;
My blessing cannot stay him: all my joys
Stand at the brink of a devouring flood,
And will be wilfully swallowed, wilfully.
But why so vain let all these tears be lost?
I'll pursue her to shame, and so all's crossed.
[Aside, and exit.
Seb. He's gone with some strange purpose, whose effect
Will hurt me little if he shoot so wide,
To think I love so blindly: I but feed
His heart to this match, to draw on the other,
Wherein my joy sits with a full wish crowned,
Only his mood excepted, which must change
By opposite policies, courses indirect;
Plain dealing in this world takes no effect.
This mad girl I'll acquaint with my intent,
Get her assistance, make my fortunes known:
'Twixt lovers' hearts she's a fit instrument,
And has the art to help them to their own.
By her advice, for in that craft she's wise,
My love and I may meet, spite of all spies. [Exit.

ACT THE THIRD.

SCENE I.

Gray's Inn Fields.

Enter LAXTON and Coachman.

LAX. Coachman.
Coach. Here, sir.
Lax. There's a tester more; prithee drive thy coach to the hither end
of Marybone-park, a fit place for Moll to get in.
Coach. Marybone-park, sir?
Lax. Ay, it's in our way, thou knowest.
Coach. It shall be done, sir.
Lax. Coachman.
Coach. Anon, sir.
Lax. Are we fitted with good frampul jades?
Coach. The best in Smithfield, I warrant you, sir.
Lax. May we safely take the upper hand of any coached velvet cap, or
tuftaffety jacket? for they keep a vile swaggering in coaches now-a-days; the
highways are stopped with them.
Coach. My life for yours, and baffle 'em too, sir: why, they are the
same jades, believe it, sir, that have drawn all your famous whores to Ware.
Lax. Nay, then they know their business; they need no more
instructions.
Coach. They're so used to such journeys, sir, I never use whip to
'em;
for if they catch but the scent of a wench once, they run like devils.
[Exit Coachman with his whip.
Lax. Fine Cerberus! that rogue will have the start of a thousand ones;
for whilst others trot a' foot, he'll ride prancing to hell upon a
coach-house.
Stay, 'tis now about the hour of her appointment, but yet I see
her not. [The
clock strikes three.] Hark! what's this? one, two, three: three by the clock
at Savoy; this is the hour, and Gray's Inn Fields the place, she swore she'd
meet me. Ha! yonder's two Inns-a'-court men with one wench, but that's not
she;
they walk toward Islington out of my way. I see none yet dressed like her; I
must look for a shag-ruff, a frieze jerkin, a short sword, and a
safeguard, or I
get none. Why, Moll, prithee, make haste, or the coachman will curse us anon.

Enter MOLL, dressed as a man.

Moll. O, here's my gentleman! If they would keep their
days as well with
their mercers as their hours with their harlots, no bankrout would give seven
score pound for a sergeant's place; for would you know a catchpoll rightly
derived, the corruption of a citizen is the generation of a sergeant. How his
eye hawks for venery!
[Aside.]—Come, are you ready, sir?
Lax. Ready? for what, sir?
Moll. Do you ask that now, sir?
Why was this meeting 'pointed?
Lax. I thought you mistook me, sir: you seem to be some young
barrister;
I have no suit in law, all my land's sold;
I praise Heaven for't, 't has rid me of much trouble.
Moll. Then I must wake you, sir; where stands the coach?
Lax. Who's this? Moll, honest Moll?
Moll. So young, and purblind?
You're an old wanton in your eyes, I see that.
Lax. Thou'rt admirably suited for the Three Pigeons
at Brainford. I'll
swear I knew thee not.
Moll. I'll swear you did not; but you shall know me now.
Lax. No, not here; we shall be spied, i'faith; the coach is better:
come.
Moll. Stay. [Puts off her cloak.
Lax. What, wilt thou untruss a point, Moll?
Moll. Yes; here's the point[Draws her sword.
That I untruss; 't has but one tag, 'twill serve though
To tie up a rogue's tongue.
Lax. How!
Moll. There's the gold
With which you hired your hackney, here's her pace;
She racks hard, and perhaps your bones will feel it:
Ten angels of mine own I've put to thine;
Win 'em and wear 'em.
Lax. Hold, Moll! Mistress Mary—
Moll. Draw, or I'll serve an execution on thee,
Shall lay thee up till doomsday.
Lax. Draw upon a woman! why, what dost mean, Moll?
Moll. To teach thy base thoughts manners: thou'rt one of those
That thinks each woman thy found flexible whore;
If she but cast a liberal eye upon thee,
Turn back her head, she's thing; or amongst company
By chance drink first to thee, then she's quite gone,
There is no means to help her: nay, for a need,
Wilt swear unto thy credulous fellow lechers,
That thou art more in favour with a lady
At first sight than her monkey all her lifetime.
How many of our sex, by such as thou,
Have their good thoughts paid with a blasted name
That never deserved loosely, or did trip
In path of whoredom beyond cup and lip!
But for the stain of conscience and of soul,
Better had women fall into the hands
Of an act silent than a bragging nothing;
There is no mercy in't. What durst move you, sir,
To think me whorish? a name which I'd tear out
From the high German's throat, if it lay leiger there
To despatch privy slanders against me.
In thee I defy all men, their worst hates
And their best flatteries, all their golden witchcrafts,
With which they entangle the poor spirits of fools,
Distressèd needle-women and trade-fallen wives;
Fish that must needs bite, or themselves be bitten;
Such hungry things as these may soon be took
With a worm fastened on a golden hook:
Those are the lecher's food, his prey; he watches
For quarrelling wedlocks and poor shifting sisters;
'Tis the best fish he takes. But why, good fisherman,
Am I thought meat for you, that never yet
Had angling rod cast towards me? 'cause, you'll say,
I'm given to sport, I'm often merry, jest:
Had mirth no kindred in the world but lust,O shame take all her friends then!
but, howe'er
Thou and the baser world censure my life,
I'll send 'em word by thee, and write so much
Upon thy breast, 'cause thou shalt bear't in mind,
Tell them 'twere base to yield where I have conquered;
I scorn to prostitute myself to a man,
I that can prostitute a man to me;
And so I greet thee.
Lax. Hear me—
Moll. Would the spirits
Of all my slanderers were clasped in thine,
That I might vex an army at one time! [They fight.
Lax. I do repent me; hold!
Moll. You'll die the better Christian then.
Lax. I do confess I have wronged thee, Moll.
Moll. Confession is but poor amends for wrong,
Unless a rope would follow.
Lax. I ask thee pardon.
Moll. I'm your hired whore, sir!
Lax. I yield both purse and body.
Moll. Both are mine,
And now at my disposing.
Lax. Spare my life!
Moll. I scorn to strike thee basely.
Lax. Spoke like a noble girl, i'faith!—Heart,
I think I fight with
a familiar, or the ghost of a fencer. Sh'as wounded me
gallantly. Call you this
a lecherous viage? here's blood would have served me this seven year in broken
heads and cut fingers; and it now runs all out together. Pox a' the Three
Pigeons! I would the coach were here now to carry me to the surgeon's.
[Aside, and exit.
Moll. If I could meet my enemies one by one thus,
I might make pretty shift with 'em in time,
And make 'em know she that has wit and spirit,
May scorn
To live beholding to her body for meat;
Or for apparel, like your common dame,
That makes shame get her clothes to cover shame.
Base is that mind that kneels unto her body,
As if a husband stood in awe on's wife!
My spirit shall be mistress of this house
As long as I have time in't.—O,

Enter TRAPDOOR.

Here comes my man that would be: 'tis his hour.
Faith, a good well-set fellow, if his spirit
Be answerable to his umbles; he walks stiff,
But whether he'll stand to't stiffly, there's the point:
Has a good calf for't; and ye shall have many a woman
Chose him she means to make her head by his calf:
I do not know their tricks in't. Faith, he seems
A man without; I'll try what he's within.
Trap. She told me Gray's Inn Fields, 'twixt three and four;
I'll fit her mistress-ship with a piece of service:
I'm hired to rid the town of one mad girl.
[MOLL jostles him.
What a pox ails you, sir?
Moll. He begins like a gentleman.
Trap. Heart, is the field so narrow, or your eyesight—
Life, he comes back again!
Moll. Was this spoke to me, sir?
Trap. I cannot tell, sir.
Moll. Go, you're a coxcomb!
Trap. Coxcomb?
Moll. You're a slave!
Trap. I hope there's law for you, sir.
Moll. Yea, do you see, sir? [Turns his hat.
Trap. Heart, this is no good dealing! pray, let me know what house
you're
of.
Moll. One of the Temple, sir. [Fillips him.
Trap. Mass, so methinks.
Moll. And yet sometime I lie about Chick Lane.
Moll. A good shift; but it shall not serve your turn.
Trap. I like you the worse because you shift your lodging so often:
I'll not meddle with you for that trick, sir.
Trap. You'll give me leave to pass about my business, sir?
Moll. Your business? I'll make you wait on me
Before I ha' done, and glad to serve me too.
Trap. How, sir? serve you? not if there were no more men in England.
Moll. But if there were no more women in England, I hope you'd wait
upon your mistress then?
Trap. Mistress?
Moll. O, you're a tried spirit at a push, sir?
Trap. What would your worship have me do?
Moll. You a fighter!
Trap. No, I praise Heaven, I had better grace and more manners.
Moll. As how, I pray, sir?
Trap. Life, 'thad been a beastly part of me to have drawn my weapons
upon my mistress; all the world would a' cried shame of me for that.
Moll. Why, but you knew me not.
Trap. Do not say so, mistress; I knew you by your wide straddle, as
well as if I had been in your belly.
Moll. Well, we shall try you further; i' the mean time
We give you entertainment.
Trap. Thank you good mistress-ship.
Moll. How many suits have you?
Trap. No more suits than blacks, mistress.
Moll. Well, if you deserve, I cast off this, next week,
And you may creep into't.
Trap. Thank your good worship.
Moll. Come, follow me to St. Thomas Apostle's:
I'll put a livery cloak upon your back
The first thing I do.
Trap. I follow, my dear mistress. [Exeunt.

SCENE II.

GALLIPOT'S Shop.

Enter Mistress GALLIPOT as from supper, GALLIPOT following her.

Gal. What, Pru! nay, sweet Prudence! Mis. G. What a pruing keep
you! I think the baby would have a teat, it kyes so. Pray, be not so fond of
me,
leave your city humours; I'm vexed at you, to see how like a calf you come
bleating after me.
Gal. Nay, honey Pru, how does your rising up before all the table
show,
and flinging from my friends so uncivilly! fie, Pru, fie! come.
Mis. G. Then up and ride, i'faith!
Gal. Up and ride? nay, my pretty Pru, that's far from my thought, duck
:
why, mouse, thy mind is nibbling at something; what is't? what lies upon thy
stomach?
Mis. G. Such an ass as you: hoyda, you're best turn midwife, or
physician! you're a 'pothecary already, but I'm none of your drugs.
Gal. Thou art a sweet drug, sweetest Pru, and the more thou art
pounded, the more precious.
Mis. G. Must you be prying into a woman's secrets, say ye?
Gal. Woman's secrets?
Mis. G. What! I cannot have a qualm come upon me, but your teeth
waters
till your nose hang over it!
Gal. It is my love, dear wife.
Mis. G. Your love? your love is all words; give me deeds: I cannot
abide a man that's too fond over me,—so cookish! Thou dost not know
how to
handle a woman in her kind.
Gal. No, Pru? why, I hope I have handled—
Mis. G. Handle a fool's head of your own,—fie, fie!
Gal. Ha, ha, 'tis such a wasp! it does me good now to have her sting
me, little rogue!
Mis. G. Now, fie, how you vex me! I cannot abide these apron
husbands;
such cotqueans! you overdo your things, they become you scurvily.
Gal. Upon my life she breeds: Heaven knows how I have strained myself
to please her night and day. I wonder why we citizens should get children so
fretful and untoward in the breeding, their fathers being for the most part as
gentle as milch kine. [Aside.]—Shall I leave thee, my Pru.
Mis. G. Fie, fie, fie!
Gal. Thou shalt not be vexed no more, pretty, kind rogue; take no
cold,
sweet Pru. [Exit.
Mis. G. As your wit has done. Now, Master Laxton, show your head; what
news from you? would any husband suspect that a woman crying, "Buy any scurvy-
grass," should bring love-letters amongst her herbs to his wife? pretty trick!
fine conveyance! had jealousy a thousand eyes, a silly woman with scurvy grass
blinds them all.
Laxton, with bays
Crown I thy wit for this, it deserves praise:
This makes me affect thee more, this proves thee wise:
'Lack, what poor shift is love forced to devise!—
To the point. [Reads letter.]—"O sweet creature"—a sweet
beginning!—"pardon my long absence, for thou shalt shortly be possessed
with my presence: though Demophoon was false to Phyllis, I will be to thee as
Pan-da-rus was to Cres-sida; though Æneas made an ass of Dido, I will die
to thee ere I do so. O sweetest creature, make much of me! for no man beneath
the silver moon shall make more of a woman than I do of thee: furnish me
therefore with thirty pounds; you must do it of necessity for me; I languish
till I see some comfort come from thee. Protesting not to die in thy debt, but
rather to live, so as hitherto I have and will,
"Thy true Laxton ever."

Alas, poor gentleman! troth, I pity him.
How shall I raise this money? thirty pound!
'Tis thirty sure, a 3 before an o;
I know his threes too well. My childbed linen,
Shall I pawn that for him? then if my mark
Be known, I am undone; it may be thought
My husband's bankrout. Which way shall I turn?
Laxton, what with my own fears and thy wants,
I'm like a needle 'twixt two adamants.

Re-enter GALLIPOT hastily.

Gal. Nay, nay, wife, the women are all up—Ha! how? reading a'
letters? I smell a goose, a couple of capons, and a gammon of bacon, from her
mother out of the country. I hold my life—steal, steal—
[Aside.
Mis. G. O, beshrew your heart!
Gal. What letter's that? I'll see't.
[Mistress GALLIPOT tears the letter.
Mis. G. O, would thou hadst no eyes to see the downfall
Of me and of thyself! I am for ever,
For ever I'm undone!
Gal. What ails my Pru?
What paper's that thou tear'st?
Mis. G. Would I could tear
My very heart in pieces! for my soul
Lies on the rack of shame, that tortures me
Beyond a woman's suffering.
Gal. What means this?
Mis. G. Had you no other vengeance to throw down,
But even in height of all my joys—
Gal. Dear woman—
Mis. G. When the full sea of pleasure and content
Seemed to flow over me?
Gal. As thou desir'st
To keep me out of Bedlam, tell what troubles thee!
Is not thy child at nurse fallen sick, or dead?
Mis. G. O, no!
Gal. Heavens bless me! are my barns and houses
Yonder at Hockley-hole consumed with fire?
I can build more, sweet Pru.
Mis. G. 'Tis worse, 'tis worse!
Gal. My factor broke? or is the Jonas sunk?
Mis. G. Would all we had were swallowed in the waves,
Rather than both should be the scorn of slaves!
Gal. I'm at my wit's end.
Mis. G. O my dear husband!
Where once I thought myself a fixèd star,
Placed only in the Heaven of thine arms,
I fear now I shall prove a wanderer.
O Laxton, Laxton! is it then my fate
To be by thee o'erthrown?
Gal. Defend me, wisdom,
From falling into frenzy! On my knees,
Sweet Pru, speak; what's that Laxton, who so heavy
Lies on thy bosom?
Mis. G. I shall sure run mad!
Gal. I shall run mad for company then. Speak to me;
I'm Gallipot thy husband—Pru—why, Pru,
Art sick in conscience for some villanous deed
Thou wert about to act? didst mean to rob me?
Tush, I forgive thee: hast thou on my bed
Thrust my soft pillow under another's head?
I'll wink at all faults, Pru: 'las, that's no more
Than what some neighbours near thee have done before!
Sweet honey Pru, what's that Laxton?
Mis. G. O!
Gal. Out with him!
Mis. G. O, he's born to be my undoer!
This hand, which thou call'st thine, to him was given,
To him was I made sure i' the sight of Heaven.
Gal. I never heard this thunder.
Mis. G. Yes, yes, before
I was to thee contracted, to him I swore:
Since last I saw him, twelve months three times told
The moon hath drawn through her light silver bow;
For o'er the seas he went, and it was said,
But rumour lies, that he in France was dead:
But he's alive, O he's alive! he sent
That letter to me, which in rage I rent;
Swearing with oaths most damnably to have me,
Or tear me from this bosom: O Heavens, save me!
Gal. My heart will break; shamed and undone for ever! Mis. G.
So black a day, poor wretch, went o'er thee never!
Gal. If thou should'st wrestle with him at the law,
Thou'rt sure to fall. No odd sleight? no prevention?
I'll tell him thou'rt with child.
Mis. G. Umh!
Gal. Or give out
One of my men was ta'en a-bed with thee.
Mis. G. Umh, umh!
Gal. Before I lose thee, my dear Pru,
I'll drive it to that push.
Mis. G. Worse and worse still;
You embrace a mischief, to prevent an ill.
Gal. I'll buy thee of him, stop his mouth with gold:
Think'st thou 'twill do?
Mis. G. O me! Heavens grant it would!
Yet now my senses are set more in tune.
He writ, as I remember, in his letter,
That he in riding up and down had spent,
Ere he could find me, thirty pounds: send that;
Stand not on thirty with him.
Gal. Forty, Pru!
Say thou the word, 'tis done: we venture lives
For wealth, but must do more to keep our wives.
Thirty or forty, Pru?
Mis. G. Thirty, good sweet;
Of an ill bargain let's save what we can:
I'll pay it him with my tears; he was a man,
When first I knew him, of a meek spirit,
All goodness is not yet dried up, I hope.
Gal. He shall have thirty pound, let that stop all:
Love's sweets taste best when we have drunk down gall.

Enter TILTYARD, Mistress TILTYARD, GOSHAWK, and Mistress OPENWORK.

God's-so, our friends! come, come, smooth your cheek:
After a storm the face of heaven looks sleek.
Tilt. Did I not tell you these turtles were together?
Mis. T. How dost thou, sirrah? why, sister Gallipot—
Mis. O. Lord, how she's changed!
Gos. Is your wife ill, sir?
Gal. Yes, indeed, la, sir, very ill, very ill, never worse.
Mis. T. How her head burns! feel how her pulses work!
Mis. O. Sister, lie down a little; that always does me good.
Mis. T. In good sadness, I find best ease in that too.
Has she laid some hot thing to her stomach?
Mis. G. No, but I will lay something anon.
Tilt. Come, come, fools, you trouble her.—Shall's go, Master
Goshawk?
Gos. Yes, sweet Master Tiltyard.—Sirrah Rosamond,
I hold my life Gallipot hath vexed his wife.
Mis. O. She has a horrible high colour indeed.
Gos. We shall have your face painted with the same red soon at night,
when your husband comes from his rubbers in a false alley: thou wilt not
believe
me that his bowls run with a wrong bias.
Mis. O. It cannot sink into me that he feeds upon stale mutton
abroad,
having better and fresher at home.
Gos. What if I bring thee where thou shalt see him stand at rack and
manger?
Mis. O. I'll saddle him in's kind, and spur him till he kick again.
Gos. Shall thou and I ride our journey then?
Mis. O. Here's my hand.
Gos. No more.—Come, Master Tiltyard, shall we leap into the
stirrups with our women, and amble home?
Tilt. Yes, yes.—Come, wife.
Mis. T. In troth, sister, I hope you will do well for all this.
Mis. G. I hope I shall. Farewell, good sister. Sweet Master Goshawk.
Gal. Welcome, brother; most kindly welcome, sir.
All. Thanks, sir, for our good cheer.
[Exeunt all but GALLIPOT and Mistress GALLIPOT.
Gal. It shall be so: because a crafty knave
Shall not outreach me, nor walk by my door
With my wife arm in arm, as 'twere his whore.
I'll give him a golden coxcomb, thirty pound.
Tush, Pru, what's thirty pound? sweet duck, look cheerly.
Mis. G. Thou'rt worthy of my heart, thou buy'st it dearly.

Enter LAXTON muffled.

Lax. Uds light, the tide's against me; a pox of your 'pothecaryship! O
for some glister to set him going! 'Tis one of Hercules' labours to tread one
of
these city hen's, because their cocks are still crowing over them.
There's no turning tail here, I must on. [Aside.
Mis. G. O husband, see he comes!
Gal. Let me deal with him.
Lax. Bless you, sir.
Gal. Be you blest too, sir, if you come in peace.
Lax. Have you any good pudding tobacco, sir?
Mis. G. O, pick no quarrels, gentle sir! my husband
Is not a man of weapons, as you are;
He knows all, I have opened all before him,
Concerning you.
Lax. Zounds, has she shown my letters? [Aside.
Mis. G. Suppose my case were yours, what would you do?
At such a pinch, such batteries, such assaults
Of father, mother, kindred, to dissolve
The knot you tied, and to be bound to him;
How could you shift this storm off?
Lax. If I know, hang me!
Mis. G. Besides a story of your death was read
Each minute to me.
Lax. What a pox means this riddling? [Aside.
Gal. Be wise, sir; let not you and I be tossed.
On lawyers' pens; they have sharp nibs, and draw
Men's very heart-blood from them. What need you, sir,
To beat the drum of my wife's infamy,
And call your friends together, sir, to prove
Your precontract, when sh'as confessed it?
Lax. Umh, sir,
Has she confessed it?
Gal. Sh'as, faith, to me, sir,
Upon your letter sending.
Mis. G. I have, I have.
Lax. If I let this iron cool, call me slave. [Aside.
Do you hear, you Dame Prudence? think'st thou, vile woman,
I'll take these blows and wink?
Mis. Gal. Upon my knees. [Kneeling.
Lax. Out, impudence!
Gal. Good sir—
Lax. You goatish slaves!
No wild fowl to cut up but mine?
Gal. Alas, sir,
You make her flesh to tremble; fright her not:
She shall do reason, and what's fit.
Lax. I'll have thee,
Wert thou more common than an hospital,
And more diseased.
Gal. But one word, good sir!
Lax. So, sir.
Gal. I married her, have lien with her and got
Two children on her body: think but on that;
Have you so beggarly an appetite,
When I upon a dainty dish have fed
To dine upon my scraps, my leavings? ha, sir?
Do I come near you now, sir?
Lax. Be-lady, you touch me?
Gal. Would not you scorn to wear my clothes, sir?
Lax. Right, sir.
Gal. Then, pray, sir, wear not her; for she's a garment
So fitting for my body, I am loth
Another should put it on: you'll undo both.
Your letter, as she said, complained you had spent,
In quest of her, some thirty pound; I'll pay it:
Shall that, sir, stop this gap up 'twixt you two?
Lax. Well, if I swallow this wrong, let her thank you:
The money being paid, sir, I am gone:
Farewell. O woman, happy's he trusts none!
Mis. G. Despatch him hence, sweet husband.
Gal. Yes, dear wife:
Pray, sir, come in: ere Master Laxton part,
Thou shalt in wine drink to him.
Mis. G. With all my heart.— [Exit GALLIPOT.
How dost thou like my wit?
Lax. Rarely: that wile,
By which the serpent did the first woman beguile,
Did ever since all women's bosoms fill;
You're apple-eaters all, deceivers still. [Exeunt.

SCENE III.

Holborn.

Enter Sir ALEXANDER WENGRAVE, Sir DAVY DAPPER, and Sir ADAM APPLETON
on
one side, and TRAPDOOR on the other.

Sir Alex. Out with your tale, Sir Davy, to Sir Adam: A knave is in mine
eye deep in my debt.
Sir Davy. Nay, if he be a knave, sir, hold him fast.
[Sir DAVY and Sir ADAM talk apart.
Sir Alex. Speak softly; what egg is there hatching now?
Trap. A duck's egg, sir, a duck that has eaten a frog; I have cracked
the shell, and some villany or other will peep out presently: the duck that
sits
is the bouncing ramp, that roaring girl my mistress; the drake that must tread
is your son Sebastian.
Sir Alex. Be quick.
Trap. As the tongue of an oyster-wench.
Sir Alex. And see thy news be true.
Trap. As a barber's every Saturday night. Mad Moll—
Sir Alex. Ah—
Trap. Must be let in, without knocking, at your back gate.
Sir Alex. So.
Trap. Your chamber will be made bawdy.
Sir Alex. Good.
Trap. She comes in a shirt of mail.
Sir Alex. How? shirt of mail?
Trap. Yes, sir, or a male shirt; that's to say, in man's apparel.
Sir Alex. To my son?
Trap. Close to your son: your son and her moon will be in
conjunction,
if all almanacs lie not; her black safeguard is turned into a deep slop, the
holes of her upper body to button-holes, her waistcoat to a
doublet, her placket
to the ancient seat of a cod-piece, and you shall take 'em both with standing
collars.
Sir Alex. Art sure of this?
Trap. As every throng is sure of a pick-pocket; as sure as a whore is
of the clients all Michaelmas term, and of the pox after the term.
Sir Alex. The time of their tilting?
Trap. Three.
Sir Alex. The day?
Trap. This.
Sir Alex. Away; ply it, watch her.
Trap. As the devil doth for the death of a bawd; I'll watch her, do
you
catch her.
Sir Alex. She's fast: here weave thou the nets. Hark.
Trap. They are made.
Sir Alex. I told them thou didst owe me money: hold it up;
maintain't.
Trap. Stiffly, as a Puritan does contention.—Pox, I owe thee not
the value of a halfpenny halter.
Sir Alex. Thou shalt be hanged in it ere thou 'scape so:
Varlet, I'll make thee look through a grate!
Trap. I'll do't presently, through a tavern grate: drawer! pish.
[Exit.
Sir Adam. Has the knave vexed you, sir?
Sir Alex. Asked him my money,
He swears my son received it. O, that boy
Will ne'er leave heaping sorrows on my heart,
Till he has broke it quite!
Sir Adam. Is he still wild?
Sir Alex. As is a Russian bear.
Sir Adam. But he has left
His old haunt with that baggage?
Sir Alex. Worse still and worse;
He lays on me his shame, I on him my curse.
Sir Davy. My son, Jack Dapper, then shall run with him
All in one pasture.
Sir Adam. Proves your son bad too, sir?
Sir Davy. As villany can make him: your Sebastian
Dotes but on one drab, mine on a thousand;
A noise of fiddlers, tobacco, wine, and a whore,
A mercer that will let him take up more,
Dice, and a water-spaniel with a duck, —O
Bring him a-bed with these: when his purse jingles,
Roaring boys follow at's tail, fencers and ningles,
Beasts Adam ne'er gave name to; these horse-leeches suck
My son; he being drawn dry, they all live on smoke.
Sir Alex. Tobacco?
Sir Davy. Right: but I have in my brain
A windmill going that shall grind to dust
The follies of my son, and make him wise,
Or a stark fool. Pray lend me your advice.
Sir Alex., Sir Adam. That shall you, good Sir Davy.
Sir Davy. Here's the springe
I ha' set to catch this woodcock in: an action
In a false name, unknown to him, is entered
I' the Counter to arrest Jack Dapper.
Sir Alex., Sir Adam. Ha, ha, he!
Sir Davy. Think you the Counter cannot break him?
Sir Adam. Break him?
Yes, and break's heart too, if he lie there long.
Sir Davy. I'll make him sing a counter-tenor sure.
Sir Adam. No way to tame him like it; there he shall learn
What money is indeed, and how to spend it.
Sir Davy. He's bridled there.
Sir Alex. Ay, yet knows not how to mend it.
Bedlam cures not more madmen in a year
Than one of the Counters does; men pay more dear
There for their with than anywhere: a Counter!
Why, 'tis an university, who not sees?
As scholars there, so here men take degrees,
And follow the same studies all alike.
Scholars learn first logic and rhetoric;
So does a prisoner: with fine honeyed speech
At's first coming in doth persuade, beseech
He may be lodged with one that is not itchy,
To lie in a clean chamber, in sheets not lousy;
But when he has no money, then does he try,
But subtle logic and quaint sophistry,
To make the keepers trust him.
Sir Adam. Say they do.
Sir Alex. Then he's a graduate.
Sir Davy. Say they trust him not.
Sir Alex. Then is he held a freshman and a sot,
And never shall commence; but being still barred,
Be expulsed from the Master's side to the Twopenny ward,
Or else i' the Hole beg place.
Sir Adam. When then, I pray,
Proceeds a prisoner?
Sir Alex. When, money being the theme,
He can dispute with his hard creditor's hearts,
And get out clear, he's then a master of arts.
Sir Davy, send your son to Wood Street college,
A gentleman can no where get more knowledge.
Sir Davy. There gallants study hard.
Sir Alex. True, to get money.
Sir Davy. 'Lies by the heels, i'faith: thanks, thanks; I ha' sent
For a couple of bears shall paw him.
Sir Adam. Who comes yonder?
Sir Davy. They look like puttocks; these should be they.

Enter CURTLEAX and HANGER.

Sir Alex. I know 'em,
They are officers; sir, we'll leave you.
Sir Davy. My good knights,
Leave me; you see I'm haunted now with sprites.
Sir Alex., Sir Adam. Fare you well, sir. [Exeunt.
Cur. This old muzzle-chops should be he by the fellow's
description.—Save you, sir.
Sir Davy. Come hither, you mad varlets; did not my man tell you I
watched here for you?
Cur. One in a blue-coat, sir, told us that in this place an old
gentleman would watch for us; a thing contrary to our oath, for we are to
watch
for every wicked member in a city.
Sir Davy. You'll watch then for ten thousand: what's thy name,
honesty?
Cur. Sergeant Curtleax I, sir,
Sir Davy. An excellent name for a sergeant, Curtleax:
Sergeants indeed are weapons of the law;
When prodigal ruffians far in debt are grown,
Should not you cut them, citizens were o'erthrown.
Thou dwell'st hereby in Holborn, Curtleax?
Cur. That's my circuit, sir; I conjure most in that circle.
Sir Davy. And what young toward whelp is this?
Han. Of the same litter; his yeoman, sir; my name's Hanger.
Sir Davy. Yeoman Hanger:
One pair of shears sure cut out both your coats;
You have two names most dangerous to men's throats;
You two are villanous loads on gentlemen's backs;
Dear ware this Hanger and this Curtleax!
Cur. We are as other men are, sir; I cannot see but he who
makes a show
of honesty and religion, if his claws can fasten to his liking, he
draws blood:
all that live in the world are but great fish and little fish, and feed upon on
e
another; some eat up whole men, a sergeant cares but for the shoulder of a
man.
They call us knaves and curs; but many times he that sets us on worries more
lambs one year than we do in seven.
Sir Davy. Spoke like a noble Cerberus! is the action entered?
Han. His name is entered in the book of unbelievers.
Sir Davy. What book's that?
Cur. The book where all prisoners' names stand; and not one amongst
forty, when he comes in, believes to come out in haste.
Sir Davy. Be as dogged to him as your office allows you to be.
Both. O sir!
Sir Davy. You know the unthrift, Jack Dapper?
Cur. Ay, ay, sir, that gull, as well as I know my yeoman.
Sir Davy. And you know his father too, Sir Davy Dapper?
Cur. As damned a usurer as ever was among Jews: if he were sure his
father's skin would yield him any money, he would, when he dies, flay it off,
and sell it to cover drums for children at Bartholomew fair.
Sir Davy. What toads are these to spit poison on a man to his face!
[Aside.] — Do you see, my honest rascals? yonder Greyhound is the dog
he hunts with; out of that tavern Jack Dapper will sally: sa, sa; give the
counter; on, set upon him!
Both. We'll charge him upo' the back, sir.
Sir Davy. Take no bail; put mace enough into his caudle; double your
files, traverse your ground.
Both. Brave, sir.
Sir Davy. Cry arm, arm, arm!
Both. Thus, sir.
Sir Davy. There, boy, there, boy! away: look to your prey, my true
English wolves; and so I vanish. [Exit.
Cur. Some warden of the sergeants begat this old fellow, upon my life:
stands close.
Han. Shall the ambuscado lie in one place?
Cur. No; nook thou yonder. [They retire.

Enter MOLL and TRAPDOOR.

Moll. Ralph.
Trap. What says my brave captain male and female?
Moll. This Holborn is such a wrangling street!
Trap. That's because lawyers walks to and fro in't.
Moll. Here's such jostling, as if every one we met were drunk and
reeled.
Trap. Stand, mistress! do you not smell carrion?
Moll. Carrion? no; yet I spy ravens.
Trap. Some poor, wind-shaken gallant will anon fall into sore labour,
and these men-midwives must bring him to bed i' the Counter: there all those
that are great with child with debts lie in.
Moll. Stand up.
Trap. Like your new Maypole.
Han. Whist, whew!
Cur. Hump, no.
Moll. Peeping? it shall go hard, huntsmen, but I'll spoil your game.
They look for all the world like two infected malt-men coming muffled up in
their cloaks in a frosty morning to London.
Trap. A course, captain; a bear comes to the stake.

Enter JACK DAPPER and GULL.

Moll. It should be so, for the dogs struggle to be let loose.
Han. Whew!
Cur. Hemp.
Moll. Hark, Trapdoor, follow your leader.
J. Dap. Gull.
Gull. Master?
J. Dap. Didst ever see such an ass as I am, boy?
Gull. No, by my troth, sir; to lose all your money, yet have false
dice
of your own; why, 'tis as I saw a great fellow used t'other day; he had a fair
sword and buckler, and yet a butcher dry-beat him with a cudgel.
Trap. Honest servant, fly!
Moll. Fly, Master Dapper! you'll be arrested else.
J. Dap. Run, Gull, and draw.
Gull. Run, master; Gull follows you.
[Exeunt DAPPER and GULL.
Cur. [MOLL holding him.] I know you well enough; you're but a
whore
to hang upon any man!
Moll. Whores, then, are like sergeants; so now hang you.— Draw,
rogue, but strike not: for a broken pate they'll keep their beds, and recover
twenty marks damages.
Cur. You shall pay for this rescue.—Run down Shoe Lane and meet
him.
Trap. Shu! is this a rescue, gentlemen, or no?
Moll. Rescue? a pox on 'em! Trapdoor, let's away;
[Exeunt CURTLEAX and HANGER.
I'm glad I've done perfect one good work to-day.
If any gentleman be in scrivener's bands,
Send but for Moll, she'll bail him by these hands.
[Exeunt.

ACT THE FOURTH.

SCENE I.

A Room in Sir ALEXANDER WENGRAVE'S House.

Enter SIR ALEXANDER WENGRAVE.

SIR ALEX. Unhappy in the follies of a son,
Led against judgment, sense, obedience,
And all the powers of nobleness and wit!

Enter TRAPDOOR.

O wretched father!— Now, Trapdoor, will she come?
Trap. In man's apparel, sir; I'm in her heart now,
And share in all her secrets.
Sir Alex. Peace, peace, peace!
Here, take my German watch, hang't up in sight,
That I may see her hang in English for't.
Trap. I warrant you for that now, next sessions rids her, sir. This
watch will bring her in better than a hundred constables. [Hangs up the
watch.
Sir Alex. Good Trapdoor, sayst thou so? thou cheer'st my heart
After a storm of sorrow. My gold chain too;
Here, take a hundred marks in yellow links.
Trap. That will do well to bring the watch to light, sir;
And worth a thousand of your headborough's lanterns.
Sir Alex. Place that a' the court-cupboard; let it lie
Full in the view of her thief-whorish eye.
Trap. She cannot miss it, sir; I see't so plain,
That I could steal't myself. [Places the chain.
Sir Alex. Perhaps thou shalt too,
That or something as weighty: what she leaves
Thou shalt come closely in and filch away,
And all the weight upon her back I'll lay.
Trap. You cannot assure that, sir.
Sir Alex. No? what lets it?
Trap. Being a stout girl, perhaps she'll desire pressing;
Then all the weight must lie upon her belly.
Sir Alex. Belly or back, I care not, so I've one.
Trap. You're of my mind for that, sir.
Sir Alex. Hang up my ruff-band with the diamond at it;
It may be she'll like that best.
Trap [Aside.] It's well for her, that she must have her
choice; he
thinks nothing too good for her.— If you hold on this mind a
little longer,
it shall be the first work I do to turn thief myself; 'twould do a man good to
be hanged when he is so well provided for.
[Hangs up the ruff-band.
Sir Alex. So, well said; all hangs well: would she hung so too!
The sight would please me more than all their glisterings.
O that my mysteries to such straits should run,
That I must rob myself to bless my son! [Exeunt.

Enter SEBASTIAN WENGRAVE, MARY FITZALLARD disguised as a page, and
MOLL
in her male dress.

Seb. Thou'st done me a kind office, without touch
Either of sin or shame; our loves are honest.
Moll. I'd scorn to make such shift to bring you together else.
Seb. Now have I time and opportunity
Without all fear to bid thee welcome, love!
[Kisses MARY. Mary. Never
with more desire and harder venture!
Moll. How strange this shows, one man to kiss another!
Seb. I'd kiss such men to choose, Moll;
Methinks a woman's lip tastes well in a doublet.
Moll. Many an old madam has the better fortune then,
Whose breaths grew stale before the fashion came:
If that will help 'em, as you think 'twill do,
They'll learn in time to pluck on the hose too.
Seb. The older they wax, Moll, troth I speak seriously,
As some have a conceit their drink tastes better
In an outlandish cup than in our own,
So methinks every kiss she gives me now
In this strange form is worth a pair of two.
Here we are safe, and furthest from the eye
Of all suspicion; this is my father's chamber,
Upon which floor he never steps till night:
Here he mistrusts me not, nor I his coming;
At mine own chamber he still pries unto me,
My freedom is not there at mine own finding,
Still checked and curbed; here he shall miss his purpose.
Moll. And what's your business, now you have your mind, sir?
At your great suit I promised you to come:
I pitied her for name's sake, that a Moll
Should be so crossed in love, when there's so many
That owes nine lays a-piece, and not so little.
My tailor fitted her; how like you his work?
Seb. So well, no art can mend it, for this purpose:
But to thy wit and help we're chief in debt,
And must live still beholding.
Moll. Any honest pity
I'm willing to bestow upon poor ringdoves.
Seb. I'll offer no worse play.
Moll. Nay, an you should, sir,
I should draw first, and prove the quicker man.
Seb. Hold, there shall need no weapon at this meeting;
But' cause thou shalt not loose thy fury idle,
Here take this viol, run upon the guts,
And end thy quarrel singing.
[Takes down and gives her a viol.
Moll. Like a swan above bridge;
For look you here's the bridge, and here am I.
Seb. Hold on, sweet Moll!
Mary. I've heard her much commended, sir, for one
That was ne'er taught.
Moll. I'm much beholding to 'em.
Well, since you'll needs put us together, sir,
I'll play my part as well as I can: it shall ne'er
Be said I came into a gentleman's chamber,
And let his instrument hang by the walls.
Seb. Why, well said, Moll, i'faith; it had been a shame for that
gentleman then that would have let it hung still, and ne'er offered thee it.
Moll. There it should have been still then for Moll;
For though the world judge impudently of me,
I never came into that chamber yet
Where I took down the instrument myself.
Seb. Pish, let 'em prate abroad; thou'rt here where thou art known
and
loved; there be a thousand close dames that will call the viol an unmannerly
instrument for a woman, and therefore talk broadly of thee, when you shall
have
them sit wider to a worse quality.
Moll. Pish,
I ever fall asleep and think not of 'em, sir;
And thus I dream.
Seb. Prithee, let's hear thy dream, Moll.
Moll [Sings.]

I dream there is a mistress,
And she lays out the money;
She goes unto her sisters,
She never comes at any.

Re-enter Sir ALEXANDER behind.

She says she went to the Burse for patterns;
You shall find her at Saint Kathern's,
And comes home with never a penny.

Seb. That's a free mistress, faith!
Sir Alex. Ay, ay, ay,
Like her that sings it; one of thine own choosing.
[Aside.
Moll. But shall I dream again?
[Sings.] Here comes a wench will brave ye;
Her courage was so great,
She lay with one of the navy,
Her husband lying i' the Fleet.
Yet oft with him she cavelled;
I wonder what she ails:
Her husband's ship lay gravelled,
When hers could hoise up sails:
Yet she began, like all my foes,
To call whore first; for so do those—
A pox of all false tails!

Seb. Marry, amen, say I!
Sir Alex. So say I too. [Aside.
Moll. Hang up the viol now, sir: all this while
I was in a dream; one shall lie rudely then;
But being awake, I keep my legs together.
A watch! what's a' clock here?
Sir Alex. Now, now she's trapped! [Aside.
Moll. Between one and two; nay, then I care not. A watch and a musician
are cousin-germans in one thing, they must both keep time well, or there's no
goodness in 'em; the one else deserves to be dashed against a wall, and
t'other
to have his brains knocked out with a fiddle-case.
What! a loose chain and a dangling diamond?
Here were a brave booty for an evening thief now:
There's many a younger brother would be glad
To look twice in at a window for't,
And wriggle in and out, like an eel in a sand-bag.
O, if men's secret youthful faults should judge 'em,
'Twould be the general'st execution
That e'er was seen in England!
There would be but few left to sing the ballads,
There would be so much work: most of our brokers
Would be chosen for hangmen; a good day for them;
They might renew their wardrobes of free cost then.
Seb. This is the roaring wench must do us good.
Mary. No poison, sir, but serves us for some use;
Which is confirmed in her.
Seb. Peace, peace—
'Foot, I did hear him sure, where'er he be.
Moll. Who did you hear?
Seb. My father;
'Twas like a sigh of his: I must be wary.
Sir Alex. No? will't not be? am I alone so wretched
That nothing takes? I'll put him to his plunge for't.
[Aside.
Seb. Life! here he comes.— Sir, I beseech you take it;
Your way of teaching does so much content me,
I'll make it four pound; here's forty shillings, sir—
I think I name it right— help me, good Moll— [Aside.
Forty in hand. [Offering money.
Moll. Sir, you shall pardon me:
I've more of the meanest scholar I can teach;
This pays me more than you have offered yet.
Seb. At the next quarter.
When I receive the means my father 'lows me,
You shall have t'other forty.
Sir Alex. This were well now,
Were't to a man whose sorrows had blind eyes:
But mine behold his follies and untruths
With two clear glasses.—[Aside, then coming forward.] —
How now?
Seb. Sir?
Sir Alex. What's he there?
Seb. You're come in good time, sir; I've a suit to you;
I'd crave your present kindness.
Sir Alex. What's he there?
Seb. A gentleman, a musician, sir: one of excellent fingering.
Sir Alex. Ay, I think so;— I wonder how they 'scaped her.
[Aside.
Seb. Has the most delicate stroke, sir.
Sir Alex. A stroke indeed!— I feel it at my heart.
[Aside.
Seb. Puts down all your famous musicians.
Sir Alex. Ay, a whore may put down a hundred of 'em. [Aside.
Seb. Forty shillings is the agreement, sir, between us:
Now, sir, my present means mounts but to half on't.
Sir Alex. And he stands upon the whole?
Seb. Ay, indeed does he, sir.
Sir Alex. And will do still; he'll ne'er be in other tale.
Seb. Therefore I'd stop his mouth, sir, an I could.
Sir Alex. Hum, true; there is no other way, indeed;—
His folly hardens; shame must needs succeed.—
[Aside.
Now, sir, I understand you profess music.
Moll. I'm a poor servant to that liberal science, sir.
Sir Alex. Where is't you teach?
Moll. Right against Clifford's Inn.
Sir Alex. Hum, that's a fit place for't: you've many scholars?
Moll. And some of worth, whom I may call my masters.
Sir Alex. Ay, true, a company of whoremasters.—
[Aside.
You teach to sing, too?
Moll. Marry, do I, sir.
Sir Alex. I think you'll find an apt scholar of my son,
Especially for prick-song.
Moll. I've much hope of him.
Sir Alex. I'm sorry for't, I have the less for that.—
[Aside.
You can play any lesson?
Moll. At first sight, sir.
Sir Alex. There's a thing called the Witch; can you play that?
Moll. I would be sorry any one should mend me in't.
Sir Alex. Ay, I believe thee; thou'st so bewitched my son,
No care will mend the work that thou hast done.
I have bethought myself, since my art fails,
I'll make her policy the art to trap her.
Here are four angels marked with holes in them
Fit for his cracked companions: gold he'll give her;
These will I make induction to her ruin,
And rid shame from my house, grief from my heart.—
[Aside.
Here, son, in what you take content and pleasure,
Want shall not curb you; pay the gentleman
His latter half in gold. [Gives money.
Seb. I thank you, sir.
Sir Alex. O may the operation on't end three;
In her life, shame in him, and grief in me!
[Aside and exit.
Seb. Faith, thou shalt have 'em; 'tis my father's gift:
Never was man beguiled with better shift.
Moll. He that can take me for a male musician,
I can't choose but make him my instrument,
And play upon him. [Exeunt.

SCENE II.

Before GALLIPOT'S Shop.

Enter Mistress GALLIPOT and Mistress OPENWORK.

Mis. G. Is, then, that bird of yours, Master Goshawk, so wild?
Mis. O. A Goshawk? a puttock; all for prey: he angles for fish, but
he
loves flesh better.
Mis. G. Is't possible his smooth face should have wrinkles in't,
and we
not see them?
Mis. O. Possible? why, have not many handsome legs in silk stockings
villanous splay feet, for all their great roses?
Mis. G. Troth, sirrah, thou sayst true.
Mis. O. Didst never see an archer, as thou'st walked by Bunhill, look
a-squint when he drew his bow?
Mis. G. Yes, when his arrows have flien toward Islington, his eyes
have
shot clean contrary towards Pimlico.
Mis. O. For all the world so does Master Goshawk double with me.
Mis. G. O, fie upon him: if he double once, he's not for me.
Mis. O. Because Goshawk goes in a shag-ruff band, with a face
sticking
up in't which shows like an agate set in a cramp ring, he thinks I'm in love
with him.
Mis. G. 'Las, I think he takes his mark amiss in thee!
Mis. O. He has, by often beating into me, made me believe my husband
kept a whore.
Mis. G. Very good.
Mis. O. Swore to me that my husband this very morning went in a boat,
with a tilt over it, to the Three Pigeons at Brainford, and his punk with him
under his tilt.
Mis. G. That were wholesome.
Mis. O. I believed it; fell a-swearing at him, cursing of harlots;
made
me ready to hoise up sail and be there as soon as he.
Mis. G. So, so.
Mis. O. And for that voyage Goshawk comes hither incontinently: but,
sirrah, this water-spaniel dives after no duck but me; his hope is having
me at
Brainford, to make me cry "quack."
Mis. G. Art sure of it?
Mis. O. Sure of it? my poor innocent Openwork came in as I was poking
my ruff: presently hit I him i' the teeth with the Three Pigeons; he forswore
all; I up and opened all; and now stands he in a shop hard by, like a musket
on
a rest, to hit Goshawk i' the eye, when he comes to fetch me to the boat.
Mis. G. Such another lame gelding offered to carry me through thick and
thin,—Laxton, sirrah,—but I am rid of him now.
Mis. O. Happy is the woman can be rid of 'em all! 'las, what are your
whisking gallants to our husbands, weigh 'em rightly, man for man?
Mis. G. Troth, mere shallow things.
Mis. O. Idle, simple things, running heads; and yet let 'em run over
us
never so fast, we shopkeepers, when all's done, are sure to have 'em in our
purse-nets at length; and when they are in, Lord, what simple animals they
are!
then they hang the head—
Mis. G. Then they droop—
Mis. O. Then they write letters—
Mis. G. Then they cog [wheedle]—
Mis. O. Then deal they underhand with us, and we must ingle with our
husbands a-bed; and we must swear they are our cousins, and able to do us a
pleasure at court.
Mis. G. And yet, when we have done our best, all's but put into a rive
n
dish; we are but frumped at and libelled upon.
Mis. O. O, if it were the good Lord's will there were a law made, no
citizen should trust any of 'em all!

Enter GOSHAWK.

Mis. G. Hush, sirrah! Goshawk flutters.
Gos. How now? are you ready?
Mis. O. Nay, are you ready? a little thing, you see makes us
ready.
Gos. Us? why, must she make one i' the voyage?
Mis. O. O, by any means! do I know how my husband will handle me?
Gos. 'Foot, how shall I find water to keep these two mills going?
[Aside.]—Well, since you'll needs be clapped under hatches, if I sail
not with you both till all split, hang me up at the mainyard and duck
me.—It's but liquoring them both soundly, and then you shall see their
cork
heels fly up high, like two swans when their tails are above water, and their
long necks under water diving to catch gudgeons. [Aside.]—Come, come,
oars stand ready; the tide's with us; on with those false faces; blow winds
and
thou shalt take thy husband casting out his net to catch fresh salmon at
Brainford.
Mis. G. I believe you'll eat of a cod's head of your own dressing
before you reach half way thither.
[Aside; she and Mistress OPENWORK then mask them selves
Gos. So, so, follow close; pin as you go.

Enter LAXTON muffled.

Lax. Do you hear?
Mis. G. Yes, I thank my ears.
Lax. I must have a bout with your 'pothecaryship.
Mis. G. At what weapon?
Lax. I must speak with you.
Mis. G. No.
Lax. No? you shall.
Mis. G. Shall? away, soused sturgeon! half fish, half flesh.
Lax. Faith, gib, are you spitting? I'll cut your tail, puss-cat, for
this.
Mis. G. 'Las, poor Laxton, I think thy tail's cut already! your
worst.
Lax. If I do not— [Exit.
Gos. Come, ha' you done?

Enter OPENWORK.

Sfoot, Rosamond, your husband!
Open. How now? sweet Master Goshawk! none more welcome;
I've wanted your embracements: when friends meet,
The music of the spheres sounds not more sweet
Than does their conference. Who's this? Rosamond?
Wife? how now, sister?
Gos. Silence, if you love me!
Open. Why masked?
Mis. O. Does a mask grieve you, sir?
Open. It does.
Mis. O. Then you're best get you a-mumming.
Gos. 'Sfoot, you'll spoil all!
Mis. G. May not we cover our bare faces with masks, As well as you
cover your bald heads with hats?
Open. No masks; why, they're thieves to beauty, that rob eyes
Of admiration in which true love lies.
Why are masks worn? why good? or why desired?
Unless by their gay covers wits are fired
To read the vilest looks: many bad faces,
Because rich gems are treasured up in cases,
Pass by their privilege current; but as caves
Damn misers' gold, so masks are beauties' graves.
Men ne'er meet women with such muffled eyes,
But they curse her that first did masks devise,
And swear it was some beldam. Come, off with't.
Mis. O. I will not.
Open. Good faces masked are jewels kept by sprites;
Hide none but bad ones, for they poison men's sights;
Show, then, as shopkeepers do their broidered stuff,
By owl-light; fine wares can't be open enough.
Prithee, sweet Rose, come, strike this sail.
Mis. O. Sail?
Open. Ha!
Yes, wife, strike sail, for storms are in thine eyes.
Mis. O. They're here, sir, in my brows, if any rise.
Open. Ha, brows?—What says she, friend? pray, tell me why
Your two flags were advanced; the comedy,
Come, what's the comedy?
Mis. G. Westward ho.
Open. How?
Mis. O. 'Tis Westward ho, she says.
Gos. Are you both mad?
Mis. O. Is't market-day at Brainford, and your ware Not sent up yet?
Open. What market-day? what ware?
Mis. O. A pie with three pigeons in't: 'tis drawn, And stays your
cutting up.
Gos. As you regard my credit—
Open. Art mad?
Mis. O. Yes, lecherous goat, baboon!
Open. Baboon? then toss me in a blanket.
Mis. O. Do I it well?
Mis. G. Rarely.
Gos. Belike, sir, she's not well; best leave her.
Open. No;
I'll stand the storm now, how fierce soe'er it blow.
Mis. O. Did I for this lose all my friends, refuse
Rich hopes and golden fortunes, to be made
A stale to a common whore?
Open. This does amaze me.
Mis. O. O God, O God! feed at reversion now?
A strumpet's leaving?
Open. Rosamond!
Gos. I sweat; would I lay in Cold Harbour! [Aside.
Mis. O. Thou'st struck ten thousand daggers through my heart!
Open. Not I, by Heaven, sweet wife!
Mis. O. Go, devil, go; that which thou swear'st by damns thee!
Gos. 'S heart, will you undo me?
Mis. O. Why stay you here? the star by which you sail Shines yonder
above Chelsea; you lose your shore; If this moon light you, seek out your
light
whore.
Open. Ha!
Mis. G. Pish, your western pug!
Gos. Zounds, now hell roars!
Mis. O. With whom you tilted in a pair of oars This very morning.
Open. Oars?
Mis. O. At Brainford, sir.
Open. Rack not my patience.—Master Goshawk,
Some slave has buzzed this into her, has he not?
I run a tilt in Brainford with a woman?
'Tis a lie!
What old bawd tells thee this? 'sdeath, 'tis a lie!
Mis. O. 'Tis one who to thy face shall justify
All that I speak.
Open. Ud'soul, do but name that rascal!
Mis. O. No, sir, I will not.
Gos. Keep thee there, girl, then! [Aside.
Open. Sister, know you this varlet?
Mis. G. Yes.
Open. Swear true;
Is there a rogue so low damned? a second Judas?—
A common hangman, cutting a man's throat,
Does it to his face,—bite me behind my back?
A cur dog? swear if you know this hell-hound.
Mis. G. In truth, I do.
Open. His name?
Mis. G. Not for the world;
To have you to stab him.
Gos. O brave girls, worth gold! [Aside.
Open. [Drawing his sword.] A word, honest Master Goshawk.
Gos. What do you mean, sir?
Open. Keep off, and if the devil can give a name
To this new fury, holla it through my ear,
Or wrap it up in some hid character.
I'll ride to Oxford and watch out mine eyes,
But I will hear the Brazen Head speak, or else
Show me but one hair of his head or beard,
That I may sample it. If the fiend I meet
In mine own house, I'll kill him; in the street,
Or at the church-door,—there, 'cause he seeks t' untie
The knot God fastens, he deserves most to die.
Mis. O. My husband titles him!
Open. Master Goshawk, pray, sir,
Swear to me that you know him, or know him not,
Who makes me at Brainford to take up a petticoat
Besides my wife's.
Gos. By Heaven, that man I know not!
Mis. O. Come, come, you lie!
Gos. Will you not have all out!
By Heaven, I know no man beneath the moon
Should do you wrong, but if I had his name,
I'd print it in text letters.
Mis. O. Print thine own then:
Didst not thou swear to me he kept his whore?
Mis. G. And that in sinful Brainford they'd commit
That which our lips did water at, sir,—ha?
Mis. O. Thou spider that hast woven thy cunning web
In mine own house t' ensnare me! hast not thou
Sucked nourishment even underneath this roof,
And turned it all to poison, spitting it
On thy friend's face, my husband (he as 'twere sleeping),
Only to leave him ugly to mine eyes,
That they might glance on thee?
Mis. G. Speak, are these lies?
Gos. Mine own shame me confounds!
Open. No more; he's stung.
Who'd think that in one body there could dwell
Deformity and beauty, Heaven and hell?
Goodness I see is but outside; we all set
In rings of gold stones that be counterfeit:
I thought you none.
Gos. Pardon me!
Open. Truth I do:
This blemish grows in nature, not in you;
For man's creation sticks even moles in scorn
On fairest cheeks.—Wife, nothing's perfect born.
Mis. O. I thought you had been born perfect.
Open. What's this whole world but a gilt rotten pill?
For at the heart lies the old core still.
I'll tell you, Master Goshawk, ay, in your eye
I have seen wanton fire; and then, to try
The soundness of my judgment, I told you
I kept a whore, made you believe 'twas true,
Only to feel how your pulse beat; but find
The world can hardly yield a perfect friend.
Come, come, a trick of youth, and 'tis forgiven;
This rub put by, our love shall run more even.
Mis. O. You'll deal upon men's wives no more?
Gos. No; you teach me
A trick for that.
Mis. O. Troth, do not; they'll o'erreach thee.
Open. Make my house yours, sir, still.
Gos. No.
Open. I say you shall:
Seeing thus besieged it holds out, 'twill never fall.

Enter GALLIPOT, followed by GREENWIT disguised as a Sumner; and
LAXTON muffled aloof off.

Open., Gos., &c. How now?
Gal. With me, sir?
Green. You, sir. I have gone snuffling up and down by your door this
hour, to watch for you.
Mis. G. What's the matter, husband?
Green. I have caught a cold in my head, sir, by sitting up late in
the
Rose tavern; but I hope you understand my speech.
Gal. So, sir.
Green. I cite you by the name of Hippocrates Gallipot, and you by the
name of Prudence Gallipot, to appear upon Crastino,—do you
see?—Crastino sancti Dunstani, this Easter term, in Bow Church.
Gal. Where, sir? what says he?
Green. Bow, Bow Church, to answer to a libel of pre-contract on the
part and behalf of the said Prudence and another: you're best, sir, take a
copy
of the citation, 'tis but twelvepence.
Open., Gos., &c. A citation!
Gal. You pocky-nosed rascal, what slave fees you to this!
Lax. [Coming forward.] Slave? I ha' nothing to do with you;
do you
hear, sir?
Gos. Laxton, is't not? What fagary is this?
Gal. Trust me, I thought, sir, this storm long ago
Had been full laid, when, if you be remembered,
I paid you the last fifteen pound, besides.
The thirty you had first; for then you swore—
Lax. Tush, tush, sir, oaths,—Truth, yet I'm loth to vex
you—tell you what,
Make up the money I had a hundred pound,
And take your bellyful of her.
Gal. An hundred pound?
Mis. G. What, a hundred pound? he gets none: what, a hundred pound?
Gal. Sweet Pru, be calm; the gentleman offers thus:
If I will make the moneys that are past
A hundred pound, he will discharge all courts,
And give his bond never to vex us more.
Mis. G. A hundred pound? 'Las, take, sir, but three-score!
Do you seek my undoing?
Lax. I'll not bate one sixpence.—
I'll maul you, puss, for spitting.
Mis. G. Do thy worst.—
Will fourscore stop thy mouth?
Lax. No.
Mis. G. You're a slave;
Thou cheat, I'll now tear money from thy throat.—
Husband, lay hold on yonder tawny coat.
Green. Nay, gentlemen, seeing your women are so hot, I must lose my
hair in their company, I see.
[Takes off his false hair.
Mis. O. His hair sheds off, and yet he speaks not so much in the nose
as
he did before.
Gos. He has had the better surgeon.—Master Greenwit, is your wit
so raw as to play no better a part than a sumner's?
Gal. I pray, who plays A Knack to know an Honest Man, in this
company?
Mis. G. Dear husband, pardon me, I did dissemble,
Told thee I was his precontracted wife,
When letters came from him for thirty pound:
I had no shift but that.
Gal. A very clean shift,
But able to make me lousy: on.
Mis. G. Husband, I plucked,
When he had tempted me to think well of him,
Gilt feathers from thy wings, to make him fly
More lofty.
Gal. A' the top of you, wife: on.
Mis. G. He having wasted them, comes now for more,
Using me as a ruffian doth his whore,
Whose sin keeps him in breath. By Heaven, I vow,
Thy bed he ne'er wronged more than he does now!
Gal. My bed? ha, ha! like enough; a shopboard will serve
To have a cuckold's coat cut out upon:
Of that we'll talk hereafter.—You're a villain.
Lax. Hear me but speak, sir, you shall find me none.
Open., Gos., &c. Pray, sir, be patient, and hear him.
Gal. I'm muzzled for biting, sir; use me how you will.
Lax. The first hour that your wife was in my eye,
Myself with other gentlemen sitting by
In your shop tasting smoke, and speech being used,
That men who've fairest wives are most abused,
And hardly scape the horn, your wife maintained
That only such spots in city dames were stained
Justly but by men's slanders: for her own part,
She vowed that you had so much of her heart,
No man, by all his wit, by any wile
Never so fine-spun, should yourself beguile
Of what in her was yours.
Gal. Yet, Pru, 'tis well.—
Play out your game at Irish, sir: who wins?
Mis. O. The trial is when she comes to bearing.
Lax. I scorned one woman thus should brave all men,
And, which more vexed me, a she-citizen;
Therefore I laid siege to her; out she held,
Gave many a brave repulse, and me compelled
With shame to sound retreat to my hot lust:
Then, seeing all base desires raked up in dust,
And that to tempt her modest ears, I swore
Ne'er to presume again: she said, her eye
Would ever give me welcome honestly;
And, since I was a gentleman, if't run low,
She would my state relieve, not to o'erthrow
Your own and hers: did so; then seeing I wrought
Upon her meekness, me she set at nought;
And yet to try if I could turn that tide,
You see what stream I strove with; but, sir, I swear
By Heaven, and by those hopes men lay up there,
I neither have nor had a base intent
To wrong your bed! what's done, is merriment:
Your gold I pay back with this interest,
When I'd most power to do't, I wronged you least.
Gal. If this no gullery be, sir—
Open., Gos., &c. No, no, on my life!
Gal. Then, sir, I am beholden—not to you, wife,—
But, Master Laxton, to your want of doing
Ill, which it seems you have not.—Gentlemen,
Tarry and dine here all.
Open. Brother, we've a jest,
As good as yours, to furnish out a feast.
Gal. We'll crown our table with't.—Wife, brag no more
Of holding out: who most brags is most whore.
[Exeunt.

ACT THE FIFTH.

SCENE I.

A Street.

Enter JACK DAPPER, MOLL, Sir BEAUTEOUS GANYMEDE, and Sir THOMAS LONG.

DAP. But, prithee, Master Captain Jack, be plain and perspicuous with me; was
it
your Meg of Westminster's courage that rescued me from the Poultry puttocks
indeed?
Moll. The valour of my wit, I ensure you, sir, fetched you off
bravely,
when you were i' the forlorn hope among those desperates. Sir Beauteous Ganymed
e
here, and Sir Thomas Long, heard that cuckoo, my man Trapdoor, sing the note
of
your ransom from captivity.
Sir Beau. Uds so, Moll, where's that Trapdoor?
Moll. Hanged, I think, by this time: a justice in this town, that
speaks nothing but "Make a mittimus, away with him to Newgate," used that
rogue
like a firework, to run upon a line betwixt him and me.
All. How, how?
Moll. Marry, to lay trains of villany to blow up my life: I smelt the
powder, spied what linstock gave fire to shoot against the poor captain of the
galley-foist, and away slid I my man like a shovel-board shilling. He struts
up
and down the suburbs, I think, and eats up whores, feeds upon a bawd's
garbage.
Sir Tho. Sirrah, Jack Dapper—
J. Dap. What sayst, Tom Long?
Sir Tho. Thou hadst a sweet-faced boy, hail-fellow with thee, to your
little gull: how is he spent?
J. Dap. Troth, I whistled the poor little buzzard off a' my fist,
because, when he waited upon me at the ordinaries, the gallants hit me i' the
teeth still, and said I looked like a painted alderman's tomb, and the boy at
my
elbow like a death's head.—Sirrah Jack, Moll—
Moll. What says my little Dapper?
Sir Beau. Come, come; walk and talk, walk and talk.
J. Dap. Moll and I'll be i' the midst.
Moll. These knights shall have squires' places belike then: well,
Dapper, what say you?
J. Dap. Sirrah captain, mad Mary, the gull my own father, Dapper Sir
Davy, laid these London boot-halers, the catchpolls, in ambush to set upon me.
All. Your father? away, Jack!
J. Dap. By the tassels of this handkercher, 'tis true: and what was
his
warlike stratagem, think you? he thought, because a wicker cage tames a
nightingale, a lousy prison could make an ass of me.
All. A nasty plot!
J. Dap. Ay, as though a Counter, which is a park in which all the
wild
beasts of the city run head by head, could tame me!
Moll. Yonder comes my Lord Noland.

Enter Lord NOLAND.

All. Save you, my lord.
Lord Nol. Well met, gentlemen all.—Good Sir Beauteous Ganymede,
Sir Thomas Long,—and how does Master Dapper?
J. Dap. Thanks, my lord.
Moll. No tobacco, my lord?
Lord Nol. No, faith, Jack.
J. Dap. My Lord Noland, will you go to Pimlico with us? we are
making a
boon voyage to that nappy land of spice-cakes.
Lord Nol. Here's such a merry ging, I could find in my heart
to sail to
the world's end with such company: come, gentlemen, let's on.
J. Dap. Here's most amorous weather, my lord.
All. Amorous weather! [They walk.
J. Dap. Is not amorous a good word?

Enter TRAPDOOR disguised as a poor Soldier with a patch over one eye,
and TEARCAT all in tatters.

Trap. Shall we set upon the infantry, these troops of foot? Zounds,
yonder comes Moll, my whorish master and mistress! would I had her kidneys
between my teeth!
Tear. I had rather have a cow-heel.
Trap. Zounds, I am so patched up, she cannot discover me: we'll on.
Tear. Alla corago, then!
Trap. Good your honours and worships, enlarge the ears of
commiseration, and let the sound of a hoarse military organ-pipe penetrate
your
pitiful bowels, to extract out of them so many small drops of silver as
may give
a hard straw-bed lodging to a couple of maimed soldiers.
J. Dap. Where are you maimed?
Tear. In both our nether limbs.
Moll. Come, come, Dapper, let's give 'em something 'las, poor
men! what
money have you? by my troth, I love a soldier with my soul.
Sir Beau. Stay, stay; where have you served?
Sir Tho. In any part of the Low Countries?
Trap. Not in the Low Countries, if it please your manhood, but in
Hungary against the Turk at the siege of Belgrade.
Lord Nol. Who served there with you, sirrah?
Trap. Many Hungarians, Moldavians, Vallachians, and Transylvanians,
with some Sclavonians; and retiring home, sir, the Venetian galleys took us
prisoners, yet freed us, and suffered us to beg up and down the country.
J. Dap. You have ambled all over Italy, then?
Trap. O sir, from Venice to Roma, Vecchia, Bononia, Romagna, Bologna,
Modena, Piacenza, and Tuscana, with all her cities, as Pistoia, Valteria,
Mountepulchena, Arezzo; with the Siennois, and divers others.
Moll. Mere rogues! put spurs to'em once more.
J. Dap. Thou lookest like a strange creature, a fat butter-box, yet
speakest English: what art thou?
Tear. Ick, mine here? ick bin den ruffling Tearcat, den brave
soldado;
ick bin dorick all Dutchlant gereisen; der schellum das meer ine beasa ine woer
t
gaeb, ick slaag um stroakes on tom cop; dastick den hundred touzun divel
halle,
frollick, mine here.
Sir Beau. Here, here; let's be rid of their jabbering.
[About to give money.
Moll. Not a cross, Sir Beauteous.—You base rogues, I have taken
measure of you better than a tailor can; and I'll fit you, as you, monster
with
one eye, have fitted me.
Trap. Your worship will not abuse a soldier?
Moll. Soldier? thou deservest to be hanged up by that tongue which
dishonours so noble a profession: soldier? you skeldering varlet! hold, stand;
there should be a trapdoor hereabouts. [Pulls off his patch.
Trap. The balls of these glaziers of mine, mine eyes, shall be shot up
and down in any hot piece of service for my invincible mistress.
J. Dap. I did not think there had been such knavery in black patches
as
now I see.
Moll. O sir, he hath been brought up in the Isle of Dogs, and can
both
fawn like a spaniel, and bite like a mastiff, as he finds occasion.
Lord Nol. What are you, sirrah? a bird of this feather too?
Tear. A man beaten from the wars, sir.
Sir Tho. I think so, for you never stood to fight.
J. Dap. What's thy name, fellow soldier?
Tear. I am called by those that have seen my valour, Tearcat.
All. Tearcat?
Moll. A mere whip-jack, and that is, in the commonwealth of rogues, a
slave that can talk of sea-fight, name all your chief pirates, discover more
countries to you than either the Dutch, Spanish, French, or English ever found
out; yet indeed all his service is by land, and that is to rob a fair, or some
such venturous exploit. Tearcat? 'foot, sirrah, I have your name, now I
remember
me, in my book of horners; horns for the thumb, you know how.
Tear. No indeed, Captain Moll, for I know you by sight, I am no such
nipping Christian, but a maunderer upon the pad, I confess; and meeting with
honest Trapdoor here, whom you had cashiered from bearing arms, out at elbows,
under your colours, I instructed him in the rudiments of roguery, and by my
map
made him sail over any country you can name, so that now he can maunder better
than myself.
J. Dap. So, then, Trapdoor, thou art turned soldier now?
Trap. Alas, sir, now there's no wars, 'tis the safest course of life
I
could take!
Moll. I hope, then, you can cant; for by your cudgels, you, sirrah,
are
an upright man.
Trap. As any walks the highway, I assure you.
Moll. And, Tearcat, what are you? a wild rogue, an angler, or a
ruffler?
Tear. Brother to this upright man, flesh and blood; ruffling
Tearcat is
my name, and a ruffler is my style, my title, my profession.
Moll. Sirrah, where's your doxy? halt not with me.
All. Doxy, Moll? what's that?
Moll. His wench.
Trap. My doxy? I have, by the salomon, a doxy that carries a kinchin
mort in her slate at her back, besides my dell and my dainty wild
dell, with all
whom I'll tumble this next darkmans in the strommel, and drink ben bouse, and
eat a fat gruntling cheat, a cackling cheat, and a quacking cheat.
J. Dap. Here's old cheating!
Trap. My doxy stays for me in a bousing ken, brave captain.
Moll. He says his wench stays for him in an ale-house.
You are no pure
rogues!
Tear. Pure rogues? no, we scorn to be pure rogues; but if you come to
our lib ken or our stalling ken, you shall find neither him nor me a queer
cuffin.
Moll. So, sir, no churl of you.
Tear. No, but a ben cove, a brave cove, a gentry cuffin.
Lord Nol. Call you this canting?
J. Dap. Zounds, I'll give a schoolmaster half-a-crown a-week, and
teach
me this pedlar's French.
Trap. Do but stroll, sir, half a harvest with us, sir, and you shall
gabble your bellyful.
Moll. Come, you rogue, cant with me.
Sir Tho. Well said, Moll.—Cant with her, sirrah, and you shall
have money, else not a penny.
Trap. I'll have a bout, if she please.
Moll. Come on, sirrah!
Trap. Ben mort, shall you and I heave a bough, mill a ken, or nip a
bung, and then we'll couch a hogshead under the ruffmans, and there you shall
wap with me, and I'll niggle with you.
Moll. Out, you damned impudent rascal!
Trap. Cut benar whids, and hold your fambles and your stamps.
Lord Nol. Nay, nay, Moll, why art thou angry? what was his gibberish?
Moll. Marry, this, my lord, says he: "Ben mort," good wench, "shall
you
and I heave a bough, mill a ken, or nip a bung?" shall you and I rob a house or

cut a purse?
All. Very good.
Moll. "And then we'll couch a hogshead under the ruffmans;" and then
we'll lie under a hedge.
Trap. That was my desire, captain, as 'tis fit a soldier should lie.
Moll. "And there you shall wap with me, and I'll niggle with
you,"—and that's all.
Sir Beau. Nay, nay, Moll, what's that wap?
J. Dap. Nay, teach me what niggling is; I'd fain be niggling.
Moll. Wapping and niggling is all one, the rogue my man can tell you.
Trap. 'Tis fadoodling, if it please you.
Sir Beau. This is excellent! One fit more, good Moll.
Moll. Come, you rogue, sing with me.

SONG.

By MOLL and TEARCAT.

A gage of ben rom-bouse
In a bousing ken of Rom-vile,
Is benar than a caster,
Peck, pennam, lap, or popler,
Which we mill in deuse a vile.
O I wud lib all the lightmans,
O I wud lib all the darkmans
By the salomon, under the ruffmans,
By the salomon, in the hartmans,
And scour the queer cramp ring,
And couch till a palliard docked my dell,
So my bousy nab might skew rom-bouse well.
Avast to the pad, let us bing;
Avast to the pad, let us bing.

All. Fine knaves, i'faith!
J. Dap. The grating of ten new cart-wheels, and the gruntling of five
hundred hogs coming from Rumford market, cannot make a worse noise than this
canting language does in my ears. Pray, my Lord Noland, let's give these
soldiers their pay.
Sir Beau. Agreed, and let them march.
Lord Nol. Here, Moll. [Gives money.
Moll. Now I see that you are stalled to the rogue, and are not ashamed
of
your professions: look you, my Lord Noland here and these gentlemen bestows
upon
you two two boards and a half, that's two shillings sixpence.
Trap. Thanks to your lordship.
Tear. Thanks, heroical captain.
Moll. Away!
Trap. We shall cut ben whids of your masters and mistress-ship
wheresoever we come.
Moll. You'll maintain, sirrah, the old justice's plot to his face?
Trap. Else trine me on the cheats,—hang me. Moll. Be sure
you meet me there.
Trap. Without any more maundering, I'll do't—Follow, brave
Tearcat.
Tear. I prœ, sequor: let us go, mouse.
[Exeunt TRAPDOOR and TEARCAT.
Lord Nol. Moll, what was in that canting song?
Moll. Troth, my lord, only a praise of good drink, the only milk
which
these wild beasts love to suck and thus it was:

[Sings.] A rich cup of wine,
O it is juice divine!
More wholesome for the head
Than meat, drink, or bread:
To fill my drunken pate
With that, I'd sit up late;
By the heels would I lie,
Under a lowsy hedge die,
Let a slave have a pull
At my whore, so I be full
Of that precious liquor:

and a parcel of such stuff, my lord, not worth the opening.

Enter a Cutpurse very gallant, with four or five others, one having a
wand.

Lord Nol. What gallant comes yonder?
Sir Tho. Mass, I think I know him; 'tis one of Cumberland.
1st Cut. Shall we venture to shuffle in amongst yon heap of gallants,
and strike?
2nd Cut. 'Tis a question whether there be any silver shells amongst
them, for all their satin outsides.
The Others. Let's try.
Moll. Pox on him, a gallant? Shadow me, I know him; 'tis one that
cumbers the land indeed; if he swim near to the shore of any of your pockets,
look to your purses.
Lord Nol., Sir Beau., &.c. Is't possible?
Moll. This brave fellow is no better than a foist.
Lord Nol., Sir Beau., &.c. Foist! what's that?
Moll. A diver with two fingers, a pickpocket; all his train study the
figging-law, that's to say, cutting of purses and foisting. One of them is a
nip; I took him once i' the two-penny gallery at the Fortune: then there's a
cloyer or snap, that dogs any new brother in that trade, and snaps will have
half in any booty. He with the wand is both a stale, whose office is to face a
man i' the streets, whilst shells are drawn by another, and then with his
black
conjuring rod in his hand, he, by the nimbleness of his eye and juggling
stick,
will, in cheaping a piece of plate at a goldsmith's stall, make four or five
rings mount from the top of his caduceus, and, as if it were at leap-frog,
they skip into his hand presently.
2nd Cut. Zounds, we are smoked!
The Others. Ha!
2nd Cut. We are boiled, pox on her! see, Moll, the roaring drab!
1st Cut. All the diseases of sixteen hospitals boil her!
—Away!
Moll. Bless you, sir.
1st Cut. And you, good sir.
Moll. Dost not ken me, man?
1st Cut. No, trust me, sir.
Moll. Heart, there's a knight, to whom I'm bound for many favours,
lost
his purse at the last new play i' the Swan, seven angels in't: make it good,
you're best; do you see? no more.
1st Cut. A synagogue shall be called, Mistress Mary; disgrace me not;
pacus palabros, I will conjure for you: farewell. [Exit with his
companions.
Moll. Did not I tell you, my lord?
Lord Nol. I wonder how thou camest to the knowledge of these nasty
villains.
Sir Tho. And why do the foul mouths of the world call thee Moll
Cutpurse? a name, methinks, damned and odious.
Moll. Dare any step forth to my face and say,
I've ta'en thee doing so, Moll? I must confess,
In younger days, when I was apt to stray,
I've sat among such adders; seen their stings,
As any here might, and in full playhouses
Watched their quick-diving hands, to bring to shame
Such rogues, and in that stream met an ill name.
When next, my lord, you spy any one of those,
So he be in his art a scholar, question him;
Tempt him with gold to open the large book
Of his close villanies; and you yourself shall cant
Better than poor Moll can, and know more laws
Of cheators, lifters, nips, foists, puggards, curbers,
With all the devil's blackguard, than it's fit
Should be discovered to a noble wit.
I know they have their orders, offices,
Circuits, and circles, unto which they're bound
To raise their own damnation in.
J. Dap. How dost thou know it?
Moll. As you do; I show't you, they to me show it. Suppose, my lord,
you were in Venice—
Lord Nol. Well.
Moll. If some Italian pander there would tell
All the close tricks of courtesans, would not you
Hearken to such a fellow?
Lord Nol. Yes.
Moll. And here,
Being come from Venice, to a friend most dear
That were to travel thither, you'd proclaim
Your knowledge in those villanies, to save
Your friend from their quick danger: must you have
A black ill name, because ill things you know?
Good troth, my lord, I'm made Moll Cutpurse so.
How many are whores in small ruffs and still looks!
How many chaste whose names fill slander's books!
Were all men cuckolds whom gallants in their scorns
Call so, we should not walk for goring horns.
Perhaps for my mad going some reprove me;
I please myself, and care not else who love me.
Lord Nol., Sir Beau., &.c. A brave mind, Moll, i'faith!
Sir Tho. Come, my lord, shall's to the ordinary?
Lord Nol. Ay, 'tis noon, sure.
Moll. Good my lord, let not my name condemn me to you, or to the
world:
a fencer I hope may be called a coward; is he so for that? If all that
have ill
names in London were to be whipped, and to pay but twelve-pence a-piece to the
beadle, I would rather have his office than a constable's.
J. Dap. So would I, Captain Moll: 'twere a sweet tickling office,
i'faith. [Exeunt.

SCENE II.

A Garden attached to Sir ALEXANDER WENGRAVE'S House.

Enter Sir ALEXANDER WENGRAVE, GOSHAWK, GREENWIT, and others.

Sir Alex. My son marry a thief, that impudent girl,
Whom all the world stick their worst eyes upon!
Green. How will your care prevent it?
Gos. 'Tis impossible:
They marry close, they're gone, but none knows whither.
Sir Alex. O gentlemen, when has a father's heart-strings

Enter Servant.

Held out so long from breaking?—Now what news, sir?
Seb. They were met upo' the water an hour since, sir, Putting in
towards the Sluice.
Sir Alex. The Sluice? come, gentlemen.
'Tis Lambeth works against us. [Exit Servant.
Green. And that Lambeth
Joins more mad matches than your six wet towns
'Twixt that and Windsor Bridge, where fares lie soaking.
Sir Alex. Delay no time, sweet gentlemen: to Blackfriars!
We'll take a pair of oars, and make after 'em.

Enter TRAPDOOR.

Trap. Your son and that bold masculine ramp my mistress
Are landed now at Tower.
Sir Alex. Hoyda, at Tower?
Trap. I heard it now reported.
Sir Alex. Which way, gentlemen,
Shall I bestow my care? I'm drawn in piecesBetwixt deceit and shame.

Enter Sir GUY FITZALLARD.

Sir Guy. Sir Alexander,
You are well met, and most rightly served;
My daughter was a scorn to you.
Sir Alex. Say not so, sir.
Sir Guy. A very abject she, poor gentlewoman!
Your house had been dishonoured. Give you joy, sir,
Of your son's gascoyne bride! you'll be a grandfather shortly
To a fine crew of roaring sons and daughters;
'Twill help to stock the suburbs passing well, sir.
Sir Alex. O, play not with the miseries of my heart!
Wounds should be dressed and healed, not vexed, or left
Wide open, to the anguish of the patient,
And scornful air let in; rather let pity
And advice charitably help to refresh 'em.
Sir Guy. Who'd place his charity so unworthily?
Like one that gives alms to a cursing beggar:
Had I but found one spark of goodness in you
Toward my deserving child, which then grew fond
Of your son's virtues, I had eased you now;
But I perceive both fire of youth and goodness
Are raked up in the ashes of your age,
Else no such shame should have come near your house,
Nor such ignoble sorrow touch your heart.
Sir Alex. If not for worth, for pity's sake assist me!
Green. You urge a thing past sense; how can he help you?
All his assistance is as frail as ours:
Full as uncertain where's the place that holds 'em;
One brings us water-news; then comes another
With a full-charged mouth, like a culverin's voice,
And he reports the Tower: whose sounds are truest?
Gos. In vain you flatter him.—Sir Alexander—
Sir Guy. I flatter him? gentlemen, you wrong me grossly.
Green. He does it well, i'faith.
Sir Guy. Both news are false,
Of Tower or water; they took no such way yet.
Sir Alex. O strange! hear you this, gentlemen? yet more plunges.
Sir Guy. They're nearer than you think for, yet more close
Than if they were further off.
Sir Alex. How am I lost
In these distractions!
Sir Guy. For your speeches, gentlemen,
In taxing me for rashness, 'fore you all
I will engage my state to half his wealth,
Nay, to his son's revenues, which are less,
And yet nothing at all till they come from him,
That I could, if my will stuck to my power,
Prevent this marriage yet, nay, banish her
For ever from his thoughts, much more his arms.
Sir Alex. Slack not this goodness, though you heap upon me
Mountains of malice and revenge hereafter!
I'd willingly resign up half my state to him,
So he would marry the meanest drudge I hire.
Green. He talks impossibilities, and you believe 'em.
Sir Guy. I talk no more than I know how to finish,
My fortunes else are his that dares stake with me.
The poor young gentleman I love and pity;
And to keep shame from him (because the spring
Of his affection was my daughter's first,
Till his frown blasted all), do but estate him
In those possessions which your love and care
Once pointed out for him, that he may have room
To entertain fortunes of noble birth,
Where now his desperate wants casts him upon her;
And if I do not, for his own sake chiefly,
Rid him of this disease that now grows on him,
I'll forfeit my whole state before these gentlemen.
Green. Troth, but you shall not undertake such matches;
We'll persuade so much with you.
Sir Alex. Here's my ring; [Gives ring.
He will believe this token. 'Fore these gentlemen
I will confirm it fully: all those lands
My first love 'lotted him, he shall straight possess
In that refusal.
Sir Guy. If I change it not,
Change me into a beggar.
Green. Are you mad, sir?
Sir Guy. 'Tis done.
Gos. Will you undo yourself by doing,
And show a prodigal trick in your old days?
Sir Alex. 'Tis a match, gentlemen.
Sir Guy. Ay, ay, sir, ay.
I ask no favour, trust to you for none;
My hope rests in the goodness of your son. [Exit.
Green. He holds it up well yet.
Gos. Of an old knight, i'faith.
Sir Alex. Curst be the time I laid his first love barren,
Wilfully barren, that before this hour
Had sprung forth fruits of comfort and of honour!
He loved a virtuous gentlewoman.

Enter MOLL in her male dress.

Gos. Life, here's Moll!
Green. Jack?
Gos. How dost thou, Jack?
Moll. How dost thou, gallant?
Sir Alex. Impudence, where's my son?
Moll. Weakness, go look him.
Sir Alex. Is this your wedding gown?
Moll. The man talks monthly:
Hot broth and a dark chamber for the knight!
I see he'll be stark mad at our next meeting. [Exit.
Gos. Why, sir, take comfort now, there's no such matter,
No priest will marry her, sir, for a woman
Whiles that shape's on; and it was never known
Two men were married and conjoined in one.
Your son hath made some shift to love another.
Sir Alex. Whate'er she be, she has my blessing with her:
May they be rich and fruitful, and receive
Like comfort to their issue as I take
In them! has pleased me now; marrying not this,
Through a whole world he could not choose amiss.
Green. Glad you're so penitent for your former sin, sir.
Gos. Say he should take a wench with her smock-dowry,
No portion with her but her lips and arms?
Sir Alex. Why, who thrive better, sir? they have most blessing,
Though other have more wealth, and least repent:
Many that want most know the most content.
Green. Say he should marry a kind youthful sinner?
Sir Alex. Age will quench that; any offence but theft
And drunkenness, nothing but death can wipe away;
Their sins are green even when their heads are grey.
Nay, I despair not now; my heart's cheered, gentlemen;
No face can come unfortunately to me.—

Re-enter Servant.

Now, sir, your news?
Ser. Your son, with his fair bride,
Is near at hand.
Sir Alex. Fair may their fortunes be!
Green. Now you're resolved, sir, it was never she.
Sir Alex. I find it in the music of my heart.

Enter SEBASTIAN WENGRAVE leading in MOLL in her female dress and
masked, and Sir GUY FITZALLARD.

See where they come.
Gos. A proper lusty presence, sir.
Sir Alex. Now has he pleased me right: I always counselled him
To choose a goodly, personable creature:
Just of her pitch was my first wife his mother.
Seb. Before I dare discover my offence,
I kneel for pardon. [Kneels.
Sir Alex. My heart gave it thee
Before thy tongue could ask it:
Rise; thou hast raised my joy to greater height
Than to that seat where grief dejected it.
Both welcome to my love and care for ever!
Hide not my happiness too long; all's pardoned;
Here are our friends.—Salute her, gentlemen.
[They unmask her.
All. Heart, who's this? Moll!
Sir Alex. O my reviving shame! is't I must live
To be struck blind? be it the work of sorrow,
Before age take't in hand!
Sir Guy. Darkness and death!
Have you deceived me thus? did I engage
My whole estate for this?
Sir Alex. You asked no favour,
And you shall find as little: since my comforts
Play false with me, I'll be as cruel to thee
As grief to fathers' hearts.
Moll. Why, what's the matter with you,
'Less too much joy should make your age forgetful?
Are you too well, too happy?
Sir Alex. With a vengeance!
Moll. Methinks you should be proud of such a daughter,
As good a man as your son.
Sir Alex. O monstrous impudence!
Moll. You had no note before, an unmarked knight;
Now all the town will take regard on you,
And all your enemies fear you for my sake:
You may pass where you list, through crowds most thick,
And come off bravely with your purse unpicked.
You do not know the benefits I bring with me;
No cheat dares work upon you with thumb or knife,
While you've a roaring girl to your son's wife.
Sir Alex. A devil rampant!
Sir Guy. Have you so much charity
Yet to release me of my last rash bargain,
And I'll give in your pledge?
Sir Alex. No, sir, I stand to't;
I'll work upon advantage, as all mischiefs
Do upon me.
Sir Guy. Content. Bear witness all, then,
His are the lands; and so contention ends:
Here comes your son's bride 'twixt two noble friends.

Enter Lord NOLAND and Sir BEAUTEOUS GANYMEDE with MARY FITZALLARD
between them; GALLIPOT, TILTYARD, OPENWORK, and their Wives.

Moll. Now are you gulled as you would be; thank me for't,
I'd a forefinger in't.
Seb. Forgive me, father!
Though there before your eyes my sorrow feigned,
This still was she for whom true love complained.
Sir Alex. Blessings eternal, and the joys of angels,
Begin your peace here to be signed in Heaven!
How short my sleep of sorrow seems now to me,
To this eternity of boundless comforts,
That finds no want but utterance and expression!My lord, your office here
appears so honourably,
So full of ancient goodness, grace, and worthiness,
I never took more joy in sight of man
Than in your comfortable presence now.
Lord Nol. Nor I more delight in doing grace to virtue
Than in this worthy gentlewoman your son's bride,
Noble Fitzallard's daughter, to whose honour
And modest fame I am a servant vowed;
So is this knight.
Sir Alex. Your loves make my joys proud.
Bring forth those deeds of land my care laid ready,
[Exit Servant, who presently returns with deeds.
And which, old knight, thy nobleness may challenge,
Joined with thy daughter's virtues, whom I prize now
As dearly as that flesh I call mine own.
Forgive me, worthy gentlewoman; 'twas my blindness:
When I rejected thee, I saw thee not;
Sorrow and wilful rashness grew like films
Over the eyes of judgment; now so clear
I see the brightness of thy worth appear.
Mary. Duty and love may I deserve in those
And all my wishes have a perfect close.
Sir Alex. That tongue can never err, the sound's so sweet.
Here, honest son, receive into thy hands
The keys of wealth, possession of those lands
Which my first care provided; they're thine own;
Heaven give thee a blessing with 'em! the best joys
That can in worldly shapes to man betide
Are fertile lands and a fair fruitful bride,
Of which I hope thou'rt sped.
Seb. I hope so too, sir.
Moll. Father and son, I ha' done you simple service here.
Seb. For which thou shalt not part, Moll, unrequited.
Sir Alex. Thou'rt a mad girl, and yet I cannot now Condemn thee.
Moll. Condemn me? troth, an you should, sir,
I'd make you seek out one to hang in my room:
I'd give you the slip at gallows, and cozen the people.
Heard you this jest, my lord?
Lord Nol. What is it, Jack?
Moll. He was in fear his son would marry me,
But never dreamt that I would ne'er agree.
Lord Nol. Why, thou hadst a suitor once, Jack: when wilt marry?
Moll. Who, I, my lord? I'll tell you when, i'faith;
When you shall hear
Gallants void from sergeants' fear,
Honesty and truth unslandered,
Woman manned, but never pandered,
Cheats booted, but not coached,
Vessels older ere they're broached;
If my mind be then not varied,
Next day following I'll be married.
Lord Nol. This sounds like doomsday.
Moll. Then were marriage best;
For if I should repent, I were soon at rest.
Sir Alex. In troth, thou'rt a good wench: I'm sorry now
The opinion was so hard I conceived of thee:

Enter TRAPDOOR.

Some wrongs I've done thee.
Trap. Is the wind there now?
'Tis time for me to kneel and confess first,
For fear it come too late, and my brains feel it.—[Aside.
Upon my paws I ask you pardon, mistress.
Moll. Pardon! for what, sir? what has your rogueship done now?
Trap. I've been from time to time hired to confound you
By this old gentleman.
Moll. How!
Trap. Pray, forgive him:
But may I counsel you, you should never do't.
Many a snare t' entrap your worship's life
Have I laid privily; chains, watches, jewels;
And when he saw nothing could mount you up,
Four hollow-hearted angels he then gave you,
By which he meant to trap you, I to save you.
Sir Alex. To all which shame and grief in me cry guilty.
Forgive me: now I cast the world's eyes from me,
And look upon thee freely with mine own,
I see the most of many wrongs before me,
Cast from the jaws of Envy and her people,
And nothing foul but that. I'll never more
Condemn by common voice, for that's the whore
That deceives man's opinion, mocks his trust,
Cozens his love, and makes his heart unjust.
Moll. Here be the angels, gentlemen; they were given me
As a musician: I pursue no pity;
Follow the law, an you can cuck me, spare not;
Hang up my viol by me, and I care not.
Sir Alex. So far I'm sorry, I'll thrice double 'em,
To make thy wrongs amends.
Come, worthy friends, my honourable lord,
Sir Beauteous Ganymede, and noble Fitzallard,
And you kind gentlewomen, whose sparkling presence
Are glories set in marriage, beams of society,
For all your loves give lustre to my joys:
The happiness of this day shall be remembered
At the return of every smiling spring;
In my time now 'tis born; and may no sadness
Sit on the brows of men upon that day,
But as I am, so all go pleased away! [Exeunt.

EPILOGUE.

A PAINTER having drawn with curious art
The picture of a woman, every part
Limned to the life, hung out the piece to sell.
People who passed along, viewing it well,
Gave several verdicts on it: some dispraised
The hair; some said the brows too high were raised;
Some hit her o'er the lips, misliked their colour;
Some wished her nose were shorter; some, the eyes fuller;
Others said roses on her cheeks should grow,
Swearing they looked too pale; others cried "no."
The workman still, as fault was found, did mend it,
In hope to please all: but this work being ended,
And hung open at stall, it was so vile,
So monstrous, and so ugly, all men did smile
At the poor painter's folly. Such, we doubt,
Is this our comedy: some perhaps do flout
The plot, saying, 'tis too thin, too weak, too mean;
Some for the person will revile the scene,
And wonder that a creature of her being
Should be the subject of a poet, seeing
In the world's eye none weighs so light: others look
For all those base tricks, published in a book,
Foul as his brains they flowed from, of cutpurses,
Of nips and foists, nasty, obscene discourses,
As full of lies as empty of worth or wit,
For any honest ear or eye unfit.
And thus,
If we to every brain that's humorous
Should fashion scenes, we, with the painter, shall,
In striving to please all, please none at all.
Yet for such faults as either the writer's wit
Or negligence of the actors do commit,
Both crave your pardons: if what both have done
Cannot full pay your expectation,
The Roaring Girl herself, some few days hence,
Shall on this stage give larger recompense.
Which mirth that you may share in, herself does woo you,
And craves this sign, your hands to beckon her to you.

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